A reconceptualização dos modos de produção de saúde no contexto da reforma hospitalar portuguesa

• Main Author: Tiago Correia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra 2009-06-01
• Series: Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais
• Subjects: modes of healthcare production; commodification; entrepreneurialization of hospitals; New Public Management
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/rccs/350

This article focuses on the recent reforms that have taken place in the Portuguese hospital sector, namely the implementation of New Public Management principles, a political option that is neither innovative nor exclusive to Portugal. Given the trend towards adopting a business model for state hospitals, the objective is to understand to what extent these reforms affect the public provision of healthcare. The opening up to market rules and, consequently, to competition between public providers as well as between public and private providers, links this business model to the commodification of public provision of healthcare. Although the end of the public mode of healthcare production is not at stake, the article presents evidence that appears to prove that these reforms are conceptually affecting the state mode of healthcare production defined by Boaventura de Sousa Santos in 1987, blurring some of the dividing lines associated with the capitalist mode of healthcare production.