Assessment of maternity services available to clients in private health facilities in Sagamu Local Government, Ogun State
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Date
2019-06
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College of Medicine, University of Ibadan
Abstract
Background: The quality of health care provided in various health facilities is one of the factors implicated for unabated high mortality and morbidity rate frequently reported. Care rendered to women in private health facilities has not been given the deserved attention. Yet significant proportion of women access perinatal care services in private health facilities. This is evident in the available very scarce literature. Therefore, this study sought to assess the nature of matenity services available to women in the selected private health facilities and the extent to which such care is satisfactory to the
users.
Methods: The descriptive survey was conducted in Sagamu Local Government Area (LGA). The study utilized a simple random sampling to select 20 out 38 private health facilities within the LGA. All health workers providing nursing/midwifery care in each of the hospitals/clinics and all clients who were on admission or came on outpatient basis for treatment were purposively recruited for the study. The total sample was adopted based on relatively few numbers
of clients and health workers patronizing and working in each of the private health facilities, respectively. A checklist was used to assess each selected private health facility, while two different structured questionnaires were used for data
collection from clients and health workers. The data collected with the three instruments were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Thus, tests of association between variables of interest were done using Pearson chi-square; level of significance (p-value) was set at 0.05.
Result: The results reveal that 35% of health facilities had good building infrastructures; 50% had fairly good building infrastructure, while 60% had inadequate essential items for child delivery and management of a baby. Measurement and recording of blood pressure, abdominal palpation and fetal heart rate were commonly performed in the private hospitals. In addition, 51 (73.9%) of the mothers received antenatal care during their last pregnancies in the facilities that were assessed but only thirty three (47.8%) returned to the same facilities for childbirth. More than half of the clients had a positive perception towards and expressed satisfaction with services in the hospitals. Close to 90% of the staff who provide nursing/midwifery care were auxiliary nurses.
Conclusion: The study reveals that the selected private hospitals/clinics were staffed with more number of quacks (auxiliary nurses) than qualified and registered nurses. Some of the facilities did not have the essential items and maternity related service. Therefore, stakeholders of health care industries should advocate enactment of legislation 'against quackery in nursing and midwifery practice in Nigeria. In addition, appropriate criteria involving should be put in place for establishment of private health facilities. Effective and efficient monitoring/inspection of established private hospitals/clinics should be promoted.
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Keywords
Assessment, maternity, services, client, private healthcare facility, Local Government Area