Pathology Services as a Pilot for the Market-led Control of Health Resources in New Zealand

This article examines the management of New Zealand's publicly funded pathology services throughout the 1990s in the context of the 'more market' radical reshaping of health services that occurred over that time. Because of the extreme market discipline to which they were subjected, pathology services are interpreted in the analysis presented here as a managerial 'pilot experiment' conducted by a health administration pursuing a long-term agenda of full privatization in health care services. Arguing from extensive archive and interview data collected over the last decade, the authors conclude that compromises involved in maintaining market-led resource control, together with unforeseen repercussions, made the strategy untenable in the New Zealand health care environment.