What price early discharge? Informal caregiving in home-based rehabilitation

Abstract

Over recent years there has been an international trend towards shorter hospital stays, and the provision of alternative health services in the home (Philp, 1996). This paper focuses on one example of this trend, home-based rehabilitation. Other examples are hospital in the home programs (Gunnel, Coast, Richards, Peters, Pounsford & Darlow, 2000) and domiciliary midwife services offered to women discharged early from maternity hospital (Thompson, Roberts, Currie & Ellwood, 2000). In Victoria, homebased rehabilitation has been available as an alternative to hospital-based care since 1995 when the first home-based rehabilitation program was established at the Greenvale campus of the North-West Hospital. Since then another ten programs have been established in Victoria as alternatives to in-patient care. Similar programs have also been established in other Australian states and overseas (for example, in Western Australia, Bairstow, Asche, Heavens & Lithgo, 1997; and in Sweden, Widén Holmqvist, de Pedro Cuesta, Holm & Kostulas, 1995).E