Fair Innings

Why the fair innings argument is not persuasive

The fair innings argument (FIA) is frequently put forward as a justification for denying elderly patients treatment when they are in competition with younger patients and resources are scarce. In this paper I will examine some arguments that are used to support the FIA. My conclusion will be that they do not stand up to scrutiny and therefore, the FIA should not be used to justify the denial of...

A ‘fair innings’ for eYciency in health services?

This paper reviews the severe visual focus problems of health economists–they have developed a one-sided fixation with equity issues, neglecting the eYciency agenda. The problems of meeting need are not just about access–they will vary with cost and supply. Economists in fact developed a more balanced agenda in the 1970s but have failed to follow it up. The paper defines the triple nationalisat...

The relevance of equity in health care for primary care: creating and sustaining a 'fair go, for a fair innings'.

This paper provides an 'equity lens' through which practitioners, policy makers and researchers can measure and monitor the equity of healthcare services provided. An argument is put forward which shows that services need to be assessed in terms of inequities, as opposed to the more often used terms of inequalities or disparities. This is not just a semantic argument, rather it is based on the ...

Born too soon, too small, to die--a plea for a fair innings.

In this 50th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) it is appropriate to call for fairness in the allocation of resources to prevail on behalf of extremelylow-birth-weight (ELBW) infants weighing between 800 and 1 000 g or of a gestational age (GA) of 27 28 weeks. The Writing Group for the Consortium for Health and Human Rights recently invited institutions that te...

"Early innings" in medical weed branding.