Effects of a refugee-assistance programme on host population in Guinea as measured by obstetric interventions.

BACKGROUND: Since 1990, 500000 people have fled from Liberia and Sierra Leone to Guinea, west Africa, where the government allowed them to settle freely, and provided medical assistance. We assessed whether the host population gained better access to hospital care during 1988-96. METHODS: In Guéckédou prefecture, we used data on major obstetric interventions performed in the district hospital between January, 1988, and August, 1996, and estimated the expected number of births to calculate the rate of major obstetric interventions for the host population. We calculated rates for 1988-90, 1991-93, and 1994-96 for three rural areas with different numbers of refugees. FINDINGS: Rates of major obstetric interventions for the host population increased from 0.03% (95% CI 0-0.09) to 1.06% (0.74-1.38) in the area with high numbers of refugees, from 0.34% (0.22-0.45) to 0.92% (0.74-1.11) in the area with medium numbers, and from 0.07% (0-0.17) to 0.27% (0.08-0.46) in the area with low numbers. The rate ratio over time was 4.35 (2.64-7.15), 1.70 (1.40-2.07), and 1.94 (0.97-3.87) for these areas, respectively. The rates of major obstetric interventions increased significantly more in the area with high numbers of refugees than in the other two areas. INTERPRETATION: In areas with high numbers of refugees, the refugee-assistance programme improved the health system and transport infrastructure. The presence of refugees also led to economic changes and a "refugee-induced demand". The non-directive refugee policy in Guinea made such changes possible and may be a cost-effective alternative to camps

Is motivation enough? Responsiveness, patient-centredness, medicalization and cost in family practice and conventional care settings in Thailand

BACKGROUND: In Thailand, family practice was developed primarily through a small number of self-styled family practitioners, who were dedicated to this professional field without having benefited from formal training in the specific techniques of family practice. In the context of a predominantly hospital-based health care system, much depends on their personal motivation and commitment to this area of medicine. The purpose of this paper is to compare the responsiveness, degree of patient-centredness, adequacy of therapeutic decisions and the cost of care in 37 such self-styled family practices, i.e. practices run by doctors who call themselves family practitioners, but have not been formally trained, and in 37 conventional public hospital outpatient departments (OPDs), 37 private clinics and 37 private hospital OPDs. METHOD: Analysis of the characteristics of 148 taped consultations with simulated patients. RESULTS: The family practices performed better than public hospital OPDs with regard to responsiveness, patient-centredness and cost of technical investigations (M-W U: p < 0.001). Prescribing patterns were similar, but family practices prescribed fewer drugs and were less costly than private clinics and hospitals (M-W U: p < 0.001). The degree of patient-centredness was not significantly different. Private clinics and private hospitals scored better for responsiveness. CONCLUSION: In Thailand self-styled family practices, even without specific training, provide a service that is more responsive and patient-centred than conventional care, with less overmedicalization and at a lower cost. Changes in prescription practices may require deeper changes in the medical culture

The response to flexibility: country intervention choices in the first four rounds of the GAVI Health Systems Strengthening applications

Since December 2005 the GAVI Alliance (GAVI) Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) window has offered predictable funding to developing countries, based on a combined population and economic formula. This is intended to assist them to address system constraints to improved immunization coverage and health care delivery, needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals. The application process invites countries to prioritize specific system constraints not adequately addressed by other donors, and allows them to allocate their eligible funds accordingly. This article presents an analysis of the first four rounds of countries' funding applications. These requested funding for a variety of health system initiatives that reflected country-specific requirements, and were not limited to improving immunization coverage. Analyses identified a dominance of operational-level health service provision activities, and an absence of interventions related to demand and financing. While the proposed activities are only now being implemented, the results of this study provide evidence that the open application process employed by the HSS window has led to a shift in analysis and planning—from the programmatic to the systemic—in the countries whose applications have been approved. However, the proposed responses to identified constraints are dominated by short-term operational responses, rather than more complex, longer term approaches to health system strengthenin

The contribution of international health volunteers to the health workforce in sub-Saharan Africa

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

The weakest link: competence and prestige as constraints to referral by isolated nurses in rural Niger

BACKGROUND: For a health district to function referral from health centres to district hospitals is critical. In many developing countries referral systems perform well below expectations. Niger is not an exception in this matter. Beyond obvious problems of cost and access this study shows to what extent the behaviour of the health worker in its interaction with the patient can be a barrier of its own. METHODS: Information was triangulated from three sources in two rural districts in Niger: first, 46 semi-structured interviews with health centre nurses; second, 42 focus group discussions with an average of 12 participants – patients, relatives of patients and others; third, 231 semi-structured interviews with referred patients. RESULTS: Passive patients without 'voice' reinforce authoritarian attitudes of health centre staff. The latter appear reluctant to refer because they see little added value in referral and fear loss of power and prestige. As a result staff communicates poorly and show little eagerness to convince reluctant patients and families to accept referral proposals. CONCLUSIONS: Diminishing referral costs and distance barriers is not enough to correct failing referral systems. There is also a need for investment in district hospitals to make referrals visibly worthwhile and for professional upgrading of the human resources at the first contact level, so as to allow for more effective referral patterns

Monitoring the referral system through benchmarking in rural Niger: an evaluation of the functional relation between health centres and the district hospital

BACKGROUND: The main objective of this study is to establish a benchmark for referral rates in rural Niger so as to allow interpretation of routine referral data to assess the performance of the referral system in Niger. METHODS: Strict and controlled application of existing clinical decision trees in a sample of rural health centres allowed the estimation of the corresponding need for and characteristics of curative referrals in rural Niger. Compliance of referral was monitored as well. Need was matched against actual referral in 11 rural districts. The referral patterns were registered so as to get an idea on the types of pathology referred. RESULTS: The referral rate benchmark was set at 2.5 % of patients consulting at the health centre for curative reasons. Niger's rural districts have a referral rate of less than half this benchmark. Acceptability of referrals is low for the population and is adding to the deficient referral system in Niger. Mortality because of under-referral is highest among young children. CONCLUSION: Referral patterns show that the present programme approach to deliver health care leaves a large amount of unmet need for which only comprehensive first and second line health services can provide a proper answer. On the other hand, the benchmark suggests that well functioning health centres can take care of the vast majority of problems patients present with

Dual practice in the health sector: review of the evidence

This paper reports on income generation practices among civil servants in the health sector, with a particular emphasis on dual practice. It first approaches the subject of public–private overlap. Thereafter it focuses on coping strategies in general and then on dual practice in particular. To compensate for unrealistically low salaries, health workers rely on individual coping strategies. Many clinicians combine salaried, public-sector clinical work with a fee-for-service private clientele. This dual practice is often a means by which health workers try to meet their survival needs, reflecting the inability of health ministries to ensure adequate salaries and working conditions. Dual practice may be considered present in most countries, if not all. Nevertheless, there is surprisingly little hard evidence about the extent to which health workers resort to dual practice, about the balance of economic and other motives for doing so, or about the consequences for the proper use of the scarce public resources dedicated to health. In this paper dual practice is approached from six different perspectives: (1) conceptual, regarding what is meant by dual practice; (2) descriptive, trying to develop a typology of dual practices; (3) quantitative, trying to determine its prevalence; (4) impact on personal income, the health care system and health status; (5) qualitative, looking at the reasons why practitioners so frequently remain in public practice while also working in the private sector and at contextual, personal life, institutional and professional factors that make it easier or more difficult to have dual practices; and (6) possible interventions to deal with dual practice

Pilfering for survival: how health workers use access to drugs as a coping strategy

BACKGROUND: Coping strategies have, in some countries, become so prevalent that it has been widely assumed that the very notion of civil services ethos has completely – and possibly irreversibly – disappeared. This paper describes the importance and the nature of pilfering of drugs by health staff in Mozambique and Cape Verde, as perceived by health professionals from these countries. Their opinions provide pointers as to how to tackle these problems. METHODS: This study is based on a self-administered questionnaire addressed to a convenience sample of health workers in Mozambique and in Cape Verde. RESULTS: The study confirms that misuse of access to pharmaceuticals has become a key element in the coping strategies health personnel develop to deal with difficult living conditions. Different professional groups (mis)use their privileged access in different ways, but doctors diversify most. The study identifies the reasons given for misusing access to drugs, shows how the problem is perceived by the health workers, and discusses the implications for finding solutions to the problem. Our findings reflect, from the health workers themselves, a conflict between their self image of what it means to be an honest civil servant who wants to do a decent job, and the brute facts of life that make them betray that image. The manifest unease that this provokes is an important observation as such. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that, even in the difficult circumstances observed in many countries, behaviours that depart from traditional civil servant deontology have not been interiorised as a norm. This ambiguity indicates that interventions to mitigate the erosion of proper conduct would be welcome. The time to act is now, before small-scale individual coping grows into large-scale, well-organized crime