ABSTRACT
THE TERM ‘HEALTH CARE' in modern western society often conjures up images of high-technology hospitals and health centres; images of nurses and doctors among many other uniformed professionals; and images of a modern medical regime incorporating pain-relieving
and life-saving drugs and breath-taking surgical techniques. The fact that families and communities might be crucial and influential providers of care is sometimes underestimated (Oakley 1993). However, the majority of us grow up being cared for by a family of one kind or another with the consequence that family care is actually more normal than is generally realised.
