School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, 327 Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, UK.
Health Place. 2023 Mar;80:102992. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2023.102992. Epub 2023 Feb 24.
It is widely assumed that fertility patients in the UK are either privately funded or publicly funded through the National Health Service. This article challenges this distinction and demonstrates how the boundaries between public and private fertility treatment provision are increasingly blurred. It draws on interviews with 42 fertility patients and partners who had accessed in vitro fertilisation (IVF) through both the National Health Service and private providers, to demonstrate how participants were compelled to engage with a consumerist model of healthcare, even when they had access to publicly funded IVF cycles. Patients' experiences of navigating fertility treatment revealed a hybrid public/private consumption landscape, which reflects the uneven process of privatisation across the fertility sector. This article demonstrates how healthcare privatisation has had profound consequences for all IVF patients.
人们普遍认为，英国的生育患者要么是私人资助的，要么是通过国民保健制度（National Health Service）获得公共资助的。本文对这一区别提出了挑战，并展示了公共和私人提供生育治疗服务之间的界限如何日益模糊。本文通过对 42 名通过国民保健制度和私人提供者获得体外受精（IVF）的生育患者及其伴侣的采访，展示了参与者如何被迫接受消费者医疗保健模式，即使他们有机会获得公共资助的 IVF 周期。患者在接受生育治疗过程中的体验揭示了一个混合的公共/私人消费领域，这反映了生育领域私有化进程的不平衡。本文表明，医疗保健私有化对所有 IVF 患者都产生了深远的影响。
