ABSTRACT
Background: Management of Human resources in health has been a major challenge. Availability of manpower and material are the key ingredients required for efficient and effective delivery of health services. Removing the barriers related to it can help to improve functioning of PHCs. Objectives: 1. To analyse Human resource and Material management skills at PHCs by middle level healthcare managers. 2. To understand the constraints for effective management at PHCs. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted amongst 38 Medical officers who were selected by simple random sampling method. Data collection was done using a semi structured and scale-based questionnaire adopted from NIHFW, India.Results: Almost half medical officers had experience of less than one year.Only 10.5% PHC/CHCs have full staff. 47.3% health facilities were lacking AYUSH MOs. 63.2% health facilities faced stock out of at least one item in last six months; Lack of manpower (34.8%) and overburden of work (27.9%) are major barriers. Conclusions: 90% PHCs have one or more posts vacant. Material management need to be improved for better provision of services. Major barriers are lack of Manpower, Infrastructure and Multitasking.
ABSTRACT
Background: Medications are an important part of the treatment of patients by clinicians in addition to other measures to be followed by the patients during the entire period of treatment. Objective: To assess patients’ understanding about the use of medications after medicines are dispensed to them by a pharmacist at a tertiary care hospital of Vadodara district in Gujarat. Materials and Methods: It was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted between the time periods of January 2015 and August 2015. A total of 464 patients were interviewed after they had received medications from the pharmacy window. Descriptive statistics were used for summarizing data. Results: Majority of the interviewed subjects belonged to 25–44 years age group with almost equal representation from both gender and new as well as follow-up visit patients. The patients were prescribed on average of 4.14 medicines (standard deviation 2.10). Only 62 participants (13.4%) had a correct understanding about the use of medication in terms of purpose (20.9%), quantity (86.4%), and frequency in a day (73.1%), and relation of its consumption with food (37.2%). The majority (71.2%) took only one attempt by the investigator for a complete understanding of drug dosages after explanation. Conclusion: The understanding of patients about dispensed medications was low, the lowest being the purpose of medication.
ABSTRACT
Background: Setting standards are a dynamic process. To provide quality care at sub-centers (SC), Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) standards are prescribed by Government of India. Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the availability of health services provided by SCs of Vadodara district. Materials and Methods: It was a cross-sectional study carried out at SCs of Primary Health Centres (PHCs) using IPHS standards as a checklist. The assessment was made by visiting 40 SCs of Vadodara district in Gujarat by a single observer. Descriptive statistics were used to present data. Results: About 36 (90%) of the SCs were located within the village and 38 (95%) SCs were easily accessible. The median distance of SC from PHC was 6 km. About 72.5% of SCs were having designated government building. About 52.5% SCs had a residential facility for frontline health workers. Availability for most of the drugs was very poor (below 25% age). Records of oral contraceptive pills usages were available in 34 (85%) of the SCs. The antenatal care services were improved by up to 25% in 10 SCs, while it was decreased to 25% in 13 SCs. Conclusion: The gaps existed in the availability of facilities and its standards at sub-centers. The availability of physical infrastructure and furniture was poor. There was worsening of the performance indicators in the majority of the components as compared to previous year records.