Reduce distance to hospital for under-privileged communities

The Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS), a population-based survey, designed to monitor progress of health service utilisation and management to inform decision makers, has identified inadequate health facilities in some parts of the country as a major factor hindering access to healthcare.

The survey said on the average, it took 30 minutes to two hours of travel for citizens to access the nearest health facilities, citing regions like Oti, Northern, North East, Ahafo and Upper West as the places where most time is used to access the nearest health facilities, with the Oti Region topping the list.

This state of affairs, going by the standards set by the World Health Organisation (WHO), undermines the delivery of quality healthcare in the country.

The WHO states that the quality of care is the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and that as countries commit to achieving Health for All, it is imperative to carefully consider the quality of care and health services.

The global health organisation goes further to state that quality healthcare should be effective, safe, and people-centred.

It adds that to realise the benefits of quality healthcare, health services must be equitable, integrated, efficient and timely.

All the terms have been defined but we wish to concentrate on the term ‘timely,’ which is reducing waiting times and sometimes harmful delays.

We know this particularly refers to the service provision at the health facility but we wish to extend it beyond that to say even accessing healthcare should be timely in which case we mean ‘easy’ in a way that would reduce the time used in reaching the healthcare centre.

If we meet all the standards set by the WHO but the patient cannot get to the health centre early enough by himself or through the assistance of others, the unexpected can happen.

We have heard stories of patients declared dead on arrival at hospitals, sometimes because of the long distance made to take the patients there.

Distance to access healthcare across the country should, therefore, be the concern of all stakeholders in healthcare delivery in the country.

We thus, support the suggestion by the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, that the government should have a second look at policies like the “Agenda 111” to ensure that hospitals are sited in a way to bring services closer to the people.

The truth is that distance can even discourage some people to seek healthcare at the hospital because of the time to spend to get there, the difficulty in getting a vehicle to the place, the risk involved and the extra money to take care of the fare before paying the bills to incur.

It is sad that health facilities are concentrated in certain places in the country but are very scarce in others.

It is time to make healthcare in the country equitable, which the WHO defines as providing care that does not vary in quality on account of gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socio-economic status.