The family planning aspects of the practice of traditional healers in Ibadan, Nigeria.

The family planning aspects of the practice of traditional healers in Ibadan, a large city in south west Nigeria, was investigated by means of a questionnaire survey of 193 traditional healers. The findings revealed that between 13% and 53% agreed with certain cultural beliefs which tend to increase fertility and that their perceptions of ideal child spacing is most commonly 2-3 years. Only 13% think a couple should have a specified number of children; a large proportion think the number should be "as God wills" (42%) or as many as the couple has resources to cope with (42%). Nearly all think that traditional healers and orthodox health professional should work together in the area of family planning. While most of them recommend traditional methods of contraception (such as beads and herbs) to their clients, up to 22% recommend modern family planning methods such as condoms and oral contraceptive pills. The implications of these findings for family planning programmes and the possibility of the involvement of traditional healers in the promotion of modern family planning methods are discussed.

PIP: The family planning aspects of the practice of traditional healers in Ibadan, a large city in southwest Nigeria, was investigated by means of a questionnaire survey of 193 traditional healers. The findings revealed that between 13% and 53% agreed with certain cultural beliefs that tend to increase fertility and that their perceptions of ideal child spacing is most commonly 2-3 years. Only 13% thought a couple should have a specified number of children; a large proportion thought the number should be "as God wills" (42%) or as many as the couple has resources to support (42%). Nearly all thought that traditional healers and orthodox health professionals should work together in the area of family planning. While most of them recommend traditional methods of contraception (such as beads and herbs) to their clients, up to 22% recommend modern family planning methods such as condoms and oral contraceptives. The implications of these findings for family planning programs and the possibility of the involvement of traditional healers in the promotion of modern family planning methods are discussed.

The population factor in public service provision in Nigeria.

"This paper is concerned with ascertaining the impact of population on the spatial pattern of public service provision in Nigeria.... Using a set of population and revenue variables as explanatory variables, a step-wise multiple regression model was employed to determine the impact of these variables on the provision of selected public services. The results of the analyses show that urban population is generally more important than total population in explaining the spatial pattern of public services. Generally speaking, the revenue variables are even more important in this regard, especially the internal revenue of states.... One implication of these results is that ability to pay, rather than need, is the basis for public service provision in Nigeria. Thus, the richer and more developed states are better off than the less developed ones, irrespective of population size."

Factors affecting the frequency of hospital trips among a predominantly rural population.

The frequency of hospital trips among the inhabitants of Nigeria's rural areas is affected by several factors. One obvious factor is the distance between potential patients and hospital facilities. And given the paucity of hospital facilities in rural areas, the distance factor is obviously an important one. However, the main focus of this paper is on the effect of some socio-economic and demographic characteristics on the frequency of hospital trips by rural inhabitants. The location of hospitals in close proximity to the user-population does not necessarily guarantee the full utilization of the facilities.

Policy and practice. The case of medical facilities in Nigeria.

Elaborate health programmes have always been an important feature of national development plans in Nigeria, especially since independence in 1960. The aspect of the programmes that is examined in this paper is the geographical distribution of medical facilities. The policy objectives in this regard have been to improve access to facilities and personnel by distributing them equally according to population, and to correct the rural urban imbalance in the system. But how far have these objectives been realized? In an attempt to answer this question, the situation in Bendel State is examined in some detail and the results show that the rural urban imbalance is still evident. Correlation analyses showed that areas that have a comparatively large urban population have more facilities and personnel than areas that are predominantly rural. Also, three step-wise multiple regression analyses revealed that Urban population is a far more important factor than total population in explaining the distribution of hospitals, hospital beds and doctors. The doctor/population ratios are exceedingly high for the predominantly rural areas, over 1:70,000 in some cases. These ratios are far in excess of 1:14,000 which was the national target for 1980. All these show that some important policy objectives of the health programmes have not been realized.