Canada's health care, which comprises a myriad of institutions and practices, is often referred to as Canada's best-loved social programme. This support is not surprising, given that it has been one of the most accessible health care systems in the world and has played a significant role in prolonging the life of many Canadians. In recent years, however, it has come under attack from a variety of sources. Every jurisdiction in the country has initiated far-ranging reforms aimed at reducing costs and has introduced strategies developed for lean and mean production in the private sector. This book will examine how most of these reforms fail to address the fundamental problems in the system. Many of the provincial reports justified cutbacks by agreeing with critics of the system that the focus should be on health, rather than illness, and that health is determined not only by individual lifestyles but also by social conditions. With such an approach, it could be argued that part of the solution to rising costs is prevention and another part is to send care, in the words of one report, "closer to home". Although there is talk of "client-oriented" care, total quality improvement, employee empowerment and community support, reform has primarily meant less of the same within institutions and more unpaid work for women in the home. The basic problems with institutional care remain largely untouched or even exaggerated while fewer and fewer people have access to good care.

Wasting Away: The Undermining of Canadian Health Care

Politics & Social Sciences

Armstrong, Pat

Armstrong, Hugh

Social Sciences

Oxford University Press

This is a provocative book that examines and assesses the Canadian health care system. It examines the development of the system and breaks the analysis down into two accessible units.

This definitive study on women is now updated for the 90s. Sociologists Pat and Hugh Armstrong "hoped that enough would change in the nature and conditions of women's work that an entirely new book would be necessary, and [they] could abandon the old framework on the division of labour by sex. But [their] hopes have not been realized and a new edition not only seems useful, but overdue." The Double Ghetto surveys the work women do at home and on the job to analyze why work in this country is still segregated by sex. In the third edition, the authors devote new space to postmodernist theory and include new material on the differences between women emphasizing race, but including region and age. More attention is also given to the "casualization" of labour due to the dramatic expansion of part-time work. In easy-to-read language, The Double Ghetto explores a vital part of the socially structured life to Canadian women using the most up-to-date (1993) statistics and scholarly research available.

The Double Ghetto: Canadian Women and Their Segregated Work

Business & Money

Economics

Wasting Away is a provocative text that examines and assesses the Canadian health care system. This seven-chapter book explores the development of the Canadian health care system and breaks the analysis down into accessible units: who provides (the institutions and the people); who pays (funding sources); and who decides (public, private, and patients). The concluding chapter sums up the winners and losers in this system. A new Introduction by the authors thoroughly updates the subject.

Wasting Away: The Undermining of Canadian Health Care (Wynford Books)

Pat Armstrong is a 2011 Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada. One of the classic studies of Canadian sociology - now reissued with a new introduction by the authors - The Double Ghetto is a thought-provoking examination of women in the workforce and how their roles have both changed and yet stayed the same over the past four decades. The Double Ghetto surveys the work women do at home and on the job to analyze why work in this country is still segregated by sex. As the authors note, although women now account for a majority of those graduating from post-secondary educational institutions and their labour force participation rate equals that of men, at the same time "women continue to do women's work at women's wages" and are disproportionately concentrated in the lowest paying occupations. Why, despite all the gains of the past four decades, does segregation still persist? And why has progress, if anything, slowed since the mid-1990s, when the previous edition of this book was issued? As well as being of vital interest to anyone interested in the status of women in the Canadian workforce, The Double Ghetto is also a standard text for courses in sociology, social work, and women's studies departments.

Sociology

Book by Armstrong, Pat, Armstrong, Hugh

Double Ghetto

MCCLELLAND STEWART

Wash, Wear, and Care: Clothing and Laundry in Long-Term Residential Care

Clothing and appearance are steeped in social and personal significance, conveying individuals’ gender, class, culture, and occupation. In the communal setting of long-term residential care, where residents’ autonomy and mobility are often limited but their dignity and identity are paramount, clothes have become crucial issues and the source of tension for residents, their families, and staff. Assessing the neglected but important labour involved in ensuring that clothes promote respect for both the washers and the wearers, Wash, Wear, and Care analyzes the roles that laundry and clothing play in nursing homes, and raises questions about the wider social, political, economic, and historical contexts of these facilities. Drawing on interviews and observations from twenty-seven long-term residential care homes across Canada, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Pat Armstrong and Suzanne Day provide an extensive and vital base of information on the daily organization, tasks, meanings, and concerns associated with clothing, laundry, dressing, and appearance in care facilities. An original study of an overlooked subject, Wash, Wear, and Care illuminates the shifting political and economic dynamics at work in long-term residential care homes and the health care system, raising larger theoretical and policy questions in the process.

Day, Suzanne

McGill-Queen's University Press

Who counts as a health care worker? The question of where we draw the line between health care workers and non-health care workers is not merely a matter of academic nicety or a debate without consequences for care. It is a central issue for policy development because the definition often results in a division among workers in ways that undermine care.Critical to Care uses a wide range of evidence to reveal the contributions that those who provide personal care, who cook, clean, keep records, and do laundry make to health services. As a result of current reforms, these workers are increasingly treated as peripheral even though the research on what determines health demonstrates that their work is essential. The authors stress the invisibility and undervaluing of 'women's work' as well as the importance of context in understanding how this work is defined and treated.Through a gendered analysis, Critical to Care establishes a basis for discussing research, policy, and other actions in relation to the work of thousands of marginalized women and men every day.

Critical To Care: The Invisible Women in Health Services

Medical Books

Scott-Dixon, Krista

Administration & Medicine Economics

University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division

Who counts as a health care worker? The question of where we draw the line between health care workers and non-health care workers is not merely a matter of academic nicety or a debate without consequences for care. It is a central issue for policy development because the definition often results in a division among workers in ways that undermine care.
Critical to Care uses a wide range of evidence to reveal the contributions that those who provide personal care, who cook, clean, keep records, and do laundry make to health services. As a result of current reforms, these workers are increasingly treated as peripheral even though the research on what determines health demonstrates that their work is essential. The authors stress the invisibility and undervaluing of 'women's work' as well as the importance of context in understanding how this work is defined and treated.
Through a gendered analysis, Critical to Care establishes a basis for discussing research, policy, and other actions in relation to the work of thousands of marginalized women and men every day.

University of Toronto Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Armstrong, Pat. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Armstrong, Pat

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Armstrong, Pat. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Wasting Away: The Undermining of Canadian Health Care

Wasting Away: The Undermining of Canadian Health Care

The Double Ghetto: Canadian Women and Their Segregated Work

Wasting Away: The Undermining of Canadian Health Care (Wynford Books)

The Double Ghetto: Canadian Women and Their Segregated Work

Double Ghetto

Wash, Wear, and Care: Clothing and Laundry in Long-Term Residential Care

Wash, Wear, and Care: Clothing and Laundry in Long-Term Residential Care

Critical To Care: The Invisible Women in Health Services

Critical To Care: The Invisible Women in Health Services