The poor attitude of health workers in the country is pushing many Ghanaians into self-medication which is bad for their health. That’s according to a monitoring report by non-governmental organization SEND Ghana which surveyed more than 2000 people across the country.
“Our monitoring report found that clients were dissatisfied with waiting in long queues for long hours to receive treatment. They indicated that the failure of health workers to report to work on time and their dispirited attitude during working hours is the cause of self-medication,” Senior Programmes Officer with SEND Ghana Mrs. Harriet Nuamah Agyemang disclosed at the launch of the report in Accra.
The study interviewed and administered questionnaires to 2026 people in the Greater Accra, Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions, with women constituting more than 56% of respondents.
The report is titled: “Giving Patients Value for Money; Are Clients satisfied with the quality of Health Services.” Its objective is to provide recommendations on how to improve access and quality of services in priority programs in the health sector in 30 districts in Ghana by strengthening accountability and transparency in the budget process by 2018. Its publication forms part of activities under the “Making the Budget Work for Ghana” project being implemented by SEND Ghana.
The launch of the report which was done in collaboration with the Global Partnership for Social Accountability was aimed at soliciting views from various stakeholders on how to ensure effective policy planning and monitoring of various health facilities by holding workers accountable to the Ghana Health Service Code of Ethics.
According to the monitoring report, most respondents were dissatisfied with the work attitude of health workers at the records section of health facilities. They also complained about inadequate staff as a result of health workers’ refusal to accept postings to deprived areas, as statistics show about 40% of new workers did not report to their districts of postings. “In 2014 and 2015, the number of doctors in Greater Accra was over 1,000 compared to less than 50 in the Upper East region as well as Upper West Regions,” the report noted.
Mrs. Agyemang Nuamah however said the study showed that the number of health workers available in a facility had no influence on the level of satisfaction of clients which was mainly based on the behaviour of the health workers. “In most cases, clients were very satisfied with facilities with limited workers than those with more workers,” she noted. “Respondents indicated that most of the health workers often attended to their acquaintances instead of following the ‘first- come-first serve’ scheduling rule which they believe is unfair to them,” she added.
The Senior Programmes Officer with SEND Ghana also stated that 24% of the client’s responded that workers were often disrespectful and showed dull attitudes to work, however majority were satisfied with particularly doctors and pharmacists because they were attentive in listening to their problems.
She disclosed respondents with no education between the ages of 30 and 39 years who largely hail from the north had the highest level of satisfaction. However respondents with basic education in the same age bracket and from Greater Accra region were not satisfied with attitudes and behaviours of health workers. This she said was the case because clients with no educational background may not have the full appreciation of what constitutes satisfactory healthcare service and tend to appreciate any form of service.
Mrs. Agyemang Nuamah said it’s time the Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Service collaborate with civil society organizations to create awareness on the Patients Charter for citizens to know their rights, roles and responsibilities in accessing healthcare services.
Chief of Party of the P4H Project at SEND Ghana Mr. Siapha Kamara advised the Ghana Health Service to increase education on good customer care and expand sentitization programmes for workers at their records section because most clients are dissatisfied with their services, especially those whose work relate to card acquisition and retrieval.
The Chief of Party asked them to introduce Information Communication Technology in their work saying, “it is extremely important for facilities to use electronic recording systems to simplify and fast track the process of acquisition and retrieval of cards.”
Also present at the launch of the monitoring report were representatives from the Ghana Health Service, Ministry of Health, other Civil Society Organizations and members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health. They noted the disclosures in the report were timely as it would assist them in proposing solutions to the major challenges facing the health sector.
