“You can’t just let health care happen”: Unpaid caregiving of brain injured spouses in a context of marketization in British Columbia

Drawing on feminist approaches, this thesis utilizes in-depth interviews to examine unpaid caregiving of a brain injured spouse in a context of health care marketization in BC. In this context of decreasing public support and cuts to services, this study focuses on caregiving practices which emerge at gaps in health services at three sites: the hospital, accessing rehabilitation, and the community. Caregivers provide direct care in hospitals in response to inadequate healthcare, construct their spouses as “deserving” of scarce rehabilitation services, and provide care in the community with limited supports. Caregivers’ advocacy care work is critical for gaining access to services and those with greater resources are better positioned to provide advocacy and other forms of care. Overall, gender influences the discourses caregivers draw upon to describe their caregiving practices. I conclude with a discussion of policy considerations which address some of the effects of marketization on unpaid caregiving.