Top Six 6 problems faced by Primary Health Care in Zone C-Benue State
Challenges Faced by Primary Health Care (Hospitals and Clinics)
op Six 6 problems faced by Primary Health Care in Zone C-Benue State: Primary health care facilities are the grass-root when it comes to the basic health of citizens. In a state like Benue where many people live in rural areas, these people do not have access to secondary health care facilities.
Here in Benue, Primary Health Care is not maintained or renovated even when they are in bad shape. See http://myeduproject.com.ng/presidency-774000-jobs-1000-lga-registration-and-requirements-apply-here
Hospitals and clinics located in rural areas seem to be cut-off from the ones located in cities. They are not catered for, neither were there provided with the necessary equipment’s to ensure the safety of the rural dwellers.
Many hospitals in rural areas cannot manage diseases, which often lead to the untimely death of many individuals.
In this article, we will unveil six challenging problems faced by Primary Health Care in zone-C of Benue state
- Lack of funding
- Lack of facilities
- Inadequate qualified personnel
- Mismanagement of funds
- Lack of transparency and accountability
- Epileptic power supply
There are many other challenges but for the purpose of this article I will talk about these few
Lack of funding
Funds are not provided to finance health care facilities and this causes them to go below the average standard. Money provided is insufficient to run all the affairs of the hospitals and most of them collapse because of this.
Hospitals are not managed well and are always kept in extremely poor conditions because there is no money for proper management.
There is nobody to monitor or track how the money is being used. Most of the money does not reach these health care centers and no there is nobody to account for it.
Top Six 6 problems faced by Primary Health Care in Zone C-Benue State
Lack of facilities
Government often overlook the primary health sector and it does not even provide it with the needed facilities. Even the old ones are not renovated which leads to their abandonment entirely.
Old facilities are abandoned, and new ones are not made which leads to the scarcity of hospitals in rural areas.
Hospitals and other health care facilities are old and since new ones are not made sick people must look for other means which may not be healthy to treat themselves.
Since there is no money to manage these hospitals there are no equipment available.
There is an unending problem of lack of materials to treat patients. Health care providers do not even have the available personal protective equipment.
They cannot even protect themselves from danger, talk more of ensuring the safety of their patients. Drugs and other necessary items must be bought outside before they are brought to the hospital to treat patients.
Local clinics cannot even boast of having enough beds to admit patients, even the available beds are not even good enough.
Inadequate qualified personnel
There are no qualified medical personnel living in rural areas, this is due to rural urban migration. Most of all the qualified medical personnel are in the cities and so they leave large vacuum in the rural areas
The number of health care providers in the primary healthcare sector is constantly reducing due to many factors. Health care providers are leaving rural areas for urban ones because they know they will get better salary for what they are doing.
Most of the qualified nurses and doctors are all based in cities and therefore the ones in rural areas are not even qualified enough to perform these tasks.
Mismanagement of fund
The funds that get through to these facilities are often at times misused by the personnel in charge of running them.
Money is not accounted for and so it is easily diverted for personal use. Officials and staff do not care to ask questions, about how the money was used because they feel it does not concern them.
Lack of transparency and accountability
There is no transparency when it comes to the use of funds which are allocated for the management of these hospitals.
Funds are looted and used for private purposes instead of to finance the basic needs of the hospitals. There are no means of checking how funds were used, so officials have opportunity to escape with the money without been caught.
Epileptic power supply
The power supply in rural areas is extremely poor. At most times communities go on for days before they get power, hospitals depend on power to enable them carry out various activities.
Power is not sufficient to carry out tasks, so the hospitals must provide it for themselves. Generators are used to provide electricity; this increases the cost of running the hospitals.
Benue South has fast growing population, and this means there will be more people to take care of. So, government and the private sectors should take control of the primary health care sector to create an enabling environment for future generations.