Not-So-Informal Relationships. Selective Unbundling of Maternal Care and the Reconfigurations of Patient–Provider Relations in Serbia

Abstract

Social practices, such as connections (veze) and gift giving, are often labelled as socialist legacies that lead to corruption and are contrary to the establishment of market practices in postsocialist societies. This paper investigates the effects of the selective opening of aspects of maternal care to market practices on patient–provider relationships. Ethnographic research indicates that doctors are navigating between the constraints and opportunities afforded by both sectors, private and public, to negotiate their daily interactions with patients. In the attempt to maintain both authority and trust with their patients in a very precarious economic and social context, doctors have to be both medical experts and entrepreneurs. This practice points towards the conclusion that it may not be the legacies of socialism that have created the need for finding new ways of forging connections between medical providers and their patients, but rather the unbundling of socialist healthcare into the market.