Towards quality primary health care: the dilemma of Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) in health service provision in Ghana
Journal of Health Organization and Management
ISSN: 1477-7266
Article publication date: 27 December 2021
Issue publication date: 2 June 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Over the past two decades, Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) has been a pragmatic strategy towards universal Primary Health Care (PHC) in Ghana. However, the ability and capacity of these facilities to deliver quality primary health care remain an illusion as they are still crumbling in myriad challenges. These challenges are translated to the poor-quality services provision and low community utilization of CHPS facilities. The study presents a comparative analysis of three communities in the Kassena-Nankana East Municipality, Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a mixed-method research design, the study gathered and analysed data from 110 households, three community health officers (CHOs) and three community leaders using semi-structured questionnaires and interview guides.
Findings
The findings indicated that the facilities do not have the requisite inputs such as drugs and supplies, logistics, appropriate health personnel, good infrastructure, funding support necessary to deliver quality and appropriate healthcare services that meet the health needs of the communities. For the CHPS to realize their full potentials as PHC facilities, it is required that the needed inputs such as logistics, drugs and appropriate staff are in place to facilitate the activities of CHOs.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the limited number of participants and selection of the study communities, the results may generalization. Also, the researchers acknowledged the inability to interview the district level health officials and the Kassena-Nankana Municipal Assembly during the field visits. This could have provided in-depth knowledge on the findings of this research as well as the validation of the results from the communities' perspective. Several attempts were made to contact and interview district-level authorities which proven futile due to the unavailability of targeted respondents. This resulted in limiting the studies at the community level. However, this limitation does not disprove the findings of this study.
Practical implications
The article implications for planning primary health care strategies include a keen assessment of community health needs and institutional management of primary health care facilities, equip PHC facilities with adequate resources such as drugs and appropriate staffing to provide the health needs of the communities.
Originality/value
The paper fulfils the gap in the literature by providing empirical data on how the challenges of primary health care facilities affected the provision of high quality service and how this can affect community’s use of the facilities.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Compliance with Ethical Standards: All procedures performed in the study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research ethics committee. The article does not contain any studies involving animals performed by any of the authors. Informed consent was obtained from all individuals participants involved in the study.
Funding: The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Conflict of interest: Authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Citation
Addi, B., Doe, B. and Oduro-Ofori, E. (2022), "Towards quality primary health care: the dilemma of Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) in health service provision in Ghana", Journal of Health Organization and Management, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 482-502. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHOM-06-2021-0219
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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