Health Sector Reforms in Orissa Lessons for Developing Countries

In analysing the phenomenon of health sector reforms, this book proposes a new conceptual framework of analysis and ethnography as a methodological tool which could be used effectively in various country contexts compared to what the existing theoretical frameworks do. Thus, apart from generating new knowledge in health sector, this study has significance for policy makers across the world. When the states themselves accept the fact that increasing private participation in health care in the form of health sector reforms is happening because of deliberate state policy, they will be better positioned to take decisions which ensure effective private sector regulation and universal access to quality health care within a democratic or participatory framework of governance. Increasing privatisation of health care has also led toward citizens losing their democratic spaces with regard to decisions on universal access to quality health care. This has wider implications, not only for improved health status in general, but also about how we live in a modern society with our values of liberty, equality and justice intact. The book would be a useful guide for policy-makers, researchers, students and layman across the world.