Combined with the widespread entry of women into the labor force, an aging population, and minimal assistance for high quality long-term care at the end of life, these economic and social conditions raise a set of difficult policy questions for health services planning. Set in these broad contexts, this paper situates access to and experience of health services in the home, the hospital, and nursing facility, to demonstrate how economic changes have relocated and redefined health services in ways that distinctively impact how people experience the places where they receive care. This place switching of health services externalizes costs of subacute and "daily life care" (the so-called custodial care) to the sphere of the individual, their family, and communities. The theoretical analysis uses current geographical and philosophical approaches to place and space, and considers the tensions between institutionally managed health care space, and the patient's experience of receiving health services...
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