Building a transitory healthcare consumer space: challenges and tensions about defining patients

This project aims to explore how vulnerable patients are included in the healthcare system in France. We focus on the work done by a “health- solidarity network” (HSN) among homeless people and migrants, and founded in 2005 in the north of France. This network is made up of several organizations’ public hospitals, health-focused NGOs, and a municipal office - willing to combine medical and social logic to help patients to be included in the mainstream healthcare system (MHS). Through a qualitative study based on long interviews with actors implied in the network and a set of non-participant observations during the network' activities, we explore the ways medical and social logics operate, complement and conflict in this "transitory space" meant to treat vulnerable people. Indeed, HSN's purpose is to service those who do not have their health card yet, and finally getting users back into the MHS. However, it is not clear that all HSN users want to be part of the MHS as they feel much more comfortable and well treated within the HSN, pushing back the transitory nature of the space created by the HSN providers. With this research, we intend to contribute to a better understanding of the patients' experiences of wellbeing, as well as to the networking and community building in the healthcare sector.