Public health reform proponents claim that individual choice and responsibility should be at the heart of Eastern European health care. In the socialist health care model citizens relied on the state to “think for them” and take responsibility for them. A key point referenced in these reforms is the notion that citizens need to forget the idea that health care is free. Does this imply that responsibility is somehow inextricably linked to money and to be a responsible patient you also have to be a consumer?
In this SHEtalk I will present the results of qualitative ethnographic research grounded in eighteen months of fieldwork in public and private maternal health care in Serbia. This research shows that pregnant patients and their medical providers, in different but mutually congruent ways, leverage the emerging private medical sector as favors – negotiating strategies with and within the public maternal health institutions.
Short biography
Ljiljana Pantović is a Research Fellow at University of Belgrade in Serbia. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from Pittsburgh University, USA (2019). She is a cultural and medical anthropologist interested in how women’s health is shaped, experienced, and negotiated in Eastern Europe.
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If you want to watch/listen to this SHEtalk on Zoom, please register here.
What are SHEtalks
SHEtalks are a serial of informal research seminars held at Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education, University of Oslo. SHEtalks are research lunch lectures. The program was put together by researcher Gabriela Saldanha. Seminars take place at Thursdays at noon (GTM+1) unless otherwise specified. They may be delivered and attended in person or via zoom.
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