Archives
Multiple visions or multiple aversions?: Consumer representation, consultation and participation in maternity issues
Karen Lane
Deakin University, VIC
Abstract
This paper reviews the Commonwealth government's policy of ‘purposeful reporting to consumers’. I argue that the notion of consumer participation is under-developed. Consumers’ needs will not be fully met by confining consumer representation at the administrative level; that is, in assuming that consumer advocates may speak for other consumers of health care services.
The partnership objective at the heart of ‘purposeful reporting’ may be addressed fully only when practitioners and providers recognise the reciprocal expertise of the consumer in defining their own health priorities. This would require a new model of knowledge, of ethics and of the clinical encounter. The problem is not one of information deficit but of contrasting views of knowledge.
Keywords
consumers, participation, reporting, knowledge, managerialism, objectivism, productivism, dialogic relationship
References
Australian Health Ministers' Advisory Council (1996) The final report of the taskforce on quality in Australian health care (AHMAC), Commonwealth of Australia. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.
Braidotti R (1994) Nomadic subjects: embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory, New York: Columbia University Press.
Brown S and Lumley J (1997) Survey of recent mothers: Women's views and experiences of maternity care, Centre for the Study of Mothers' and Children's Health, School of Public Health, Melbourne: La Trobe University.
Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care (2000) Draft principles and guidelines, national workshop 'Reporting on the quality of health services to consumers' held at the Royal Women's Hospital, Victoria 09 June.
Consumer Focus Collaboration (1998) Consumer focus collaboration strategic plan 1997/98-2000/01, Strengthening the focus on consumers in health service planning, delivery, monitoring and evaluation in Australia, August.
Consumers' Health Forum of Australia (1996) Consultations on a health service standards report: A report to the Department of Health and Family Services on consumer and community consultations, Canberra: CHF.
Davis-Floyd R (1992) Birth as an American rite of passage, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Draper M (1997) In Hancock L (ed) Analysing Health Policy, Geelong: Deakin University.
Duckett S and Hunter L (1999) Health services policy review: final report Casemix Consulting, commissioned by Victorian Department of Human Services, November. Melbourne: Victorian Department of Human Services.
Foucault M (1973) The birth of the clinic: an archaeology of medical perception, translated from the French by Sheridan AM. London: Tavistock.
Foucault M (1980) Poiver/knowledge: selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977, Gordon C (ed), translated by Gordon C, Brighton: Harvester.
Gardner Heather, Interest groups and the political process. In Gardner H (ed) The Politics of health: The Australian experience 2nd edn. Melbourne: Churchill Livingstone, pp.184-213.
Gibberd R, Hamilton J, Wilson R, Harrison H and Newby L (1996) Quality in Australian health care study: Final report, second part, Canberra: Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services. (An initial analysis was published in the Medical Journal of Australia 06 November 1995).
Grosz E (1994) Volatile bodies: toward a corporeal feminism, St Leonards NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Hancock L (1997) Analysing health policy, Geelong: Deakin University.
Hodnett ED (1993) Support from caregivers during childbirth. In Enkin MW, Keirse MJNC, Renfrew MJ and Neilson JP (eds) Pregnancy and childbirth module, Cochrane Collaboration Pregnancy and Childbirth Database, Oxford: Update Software Ltd.
McCourt C, Page L, Hewison J and Vail A (1998) Evaluation of one-to-one midwifery: Women's responses to care, Birth 25(2 June): 73-80.
McNay L (2000) Gender and agency: reconfiguring the subject in feminist and social theory, Maiden Massachusetts: Polity Press.
Nederveen Pieterse J (2000) Shaping globalization. In Nederveen Pieterse J (ed) Global Futures: Shaping globalization, London: Zed Books.
Nicolson L (1999) The play of reason: from the modern to the postmodern, Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press.
Oakley A, Hickey D and Rajan L (1996) Social support in pregnancy: does it have long-term effects? Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology 14: 7-22.
Oakley A, Rajan L and Grant A (1990) Social support and pregnancy outcome. In British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology February 97: 155-162.
Rothfield P (1995) Bodies and subjects: medical ethics and feminism. In Komesaroff P (ed) Troubled bodies: Critical perspectives on postmodernism, medical ethics and the body, Carlton VIC: Melbourne University Press.
Tito F (1996) Compensation and professional indemnity in health care: Final report: Review professional indemnity arrangements for health of care professionals, Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.
Victoria Department of Health (1990) Having a baby in Victoria: Final report of the Ministerial Review of Birthing Services in Victoria, Melbourne: Department of Health, Victoria.
eContent Home
