Gerald A. Arbuckle

I was born and educated (philosophy and theology) initially in New Zealand. Studied philosophy in Rome,and then moved to Cambridge University where I was trained as as social anthropologist. In the late 1980s I began to apply anthropological insights to religious organizations, but I then concentrated on the challenges confronting faith-based healthcare systems in USA, Canada, and Australia. These systems are value-based (e.g. values of compassion, justice, respect) but their existence is increasingly threatened by market economics. I am now a consultant to private and public healthcare sytems internationally on how best to maintain the original foundng values of healthcare that are under such enormous pressures.I published a book in 2000, detailing the problems (and possible solutions) that faith-based healthcare systems, particularly in the US, are experiencing: Healthcare Ministries: Refounding the Mission in Tumultuous Times (Liturgical Press). I then became for several years a director of the national board of the largest non-profit healthcare system in Australia. Then the Government of NSW, Australia, appointed me to an Independent Panel to review the reform of the public hospitals in the State. Extremely helpful experience. Following research in Oxford into the National Health Service in England, I returned to Oxford in 2011 to deliver the D'Arcy Lectures, the theme being: Healthcare in Chaos. These lectures form the basis for my book to be published in October, 2012: Humanizing Healthcare Reforms (Jessica Kingsley Publishers). I meet wonderfully dedicated practitioners and staff members in healthcare systems whose main concern is the welfare of patients, but often they feel that governments and bureaucrats are more concerned with the bottom-line than with needs of patients. The more market economics controls healthcare the more the welfare of patients will suffer.