Placing private health care: reading Ascot Hospital in the landscape of contemporary Auckland.

Full Abstract

The closing years of the 20th century were a time in New Zealand dominated by health care reforms inspired by neo-liberal ideology. The result has been changing geographies of public and private health care providers and the evolution of a new discourse of health care. Ascot Integrated Hospital, situated in the affluent Auckland suburb of Remuera, opened in 1999, reflecting and projecting this new discourse. It is a pioneer, competing for patient patronage in a contracting market for surgical and medical providers. In this paper we survey the recent history of private hospital developments in New Zealand, then more closely consider the Ascot, a hospital that has deployed language to construct itself and its achievements in the public imagination. Given the context of an extremely competitive environment for private patients, this construction glamorises medicine and links healing with a contrived place. We conclude that texts associated with the Ascot provide a useful vehicle for advancing cultural geographies of health care and ideas of the place of hospitals in western capitalist countries.

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Author information

Author/s: Kearns, Robin A (RA); Barnett, J Ross (JR); Newman, Daniel (D);

Affiliation: School of Geography and Environmental Science, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand. r.kearns(-atsign-)auckland.ac.nz

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Social science & medicine (1982) (Soc Sci Med), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-Jun; vol 56 (issue 11) : pp 2303-15

Dates: Created 2003/04/29; Completed 2003/07/15; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12719183, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Geography
Health Care Reform
Health Facility Environment
Hospitals, Private - organization & administration
Humans
Marketing of Health Services
New Zealand

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