Exposing Privatization: Women and Health Care Reform in Canada

This book exposes the many faces of health care privatization and its impact on women. It begins with the international context for health care reform and then moves from coast to coast, setting out what is known about the reforms that are underway and about their impact on women. The complexity of the task is obvious; home care, for example, means one thing in Manitoba and another in Ontario. Who pays for it? Who delivers it? Who gets to use it and under what conditions? are questions with different answers in each province - although the two provinces face similar pressures and often get similar advice. Moreover, reforms are significantly changing home care in both provinces and doing so at a rapid pace. Yet it is not easy to find out the precise nature and extent of these reforms, let alone what they mean in practice, especially for women.

Just as there are considerable differences across the country in terms of reforms, there are considerable differences among women in terms of how they connect to health care. This book shows the consequences that reforms have for women as providers and patients, and the impact of these reforms on women’s participation in the decision-making process. At the same time, the text never loses sight of the significant differences between women related to their physical, social, economic, cultural/racial, locations and their age and sexual orientation. Which women are affected, in what ways, by which reforms are the central questions in Exposing Privatization, a book that will not only inform but spur action in health care policy and practice.