Health Care Reform in New Zealand: The Diversity of Gender Experience

Women are a heterogeneous group with varying experiences and needs of health care systems. It is important that we recognise not only differences between women, but also that individual women may have different, even contradictory, health care issues and needs. These may vary according to women's different roles, identities, contexts, and resources (financial, social, etc.). This paper explores situated ideas about identity, gender, and place and how these relate to perceptions of accessibility of health care services in the context of New Zealand's restructured health care system. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.