Assessment of healthcare waste management practices and associated factors in Addis Ababa City Administration Public Health Facilities.

BACKGROUND: Healthcare waste management is very important due to its hazardous nature that can cause risk to human health and the environment. In developing countries, healthcare waste has not received much attention and has been disposed of together with municipal waste. The aim of the study was to assess the healthcare waste management practices in Addis Ababa City Administration Public Health Facilities. METHODS: An institutional-based cross-sectional design was used for the study at Addis Ababa city 15 Public health centres and 3 hospitals. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires distributed to 636 randomly selected healthcare waste handlers and managers. Observational check list also used. The data were entered into the EPI- INFO version TM 7 and exported to IBM SPSS 20 for analysis. Both descriptive and analytic statistics were employed. RESULTS: Among the respondents, 358 (90.86%) from health centres and 96.38% (133) from hospitals indicated that their facilities had separate containers for hazardous and non-hazardous waste however, 61 (15.48%) from health centres and 29 (21.01%) from hospitals indicated that healthcare waste containers were not clearly marked or labelled. The study found that the main forms of on-site treatment of healthcare waste for health centres and hospitals before disposal were burning. Manager respondents from the health centres 65 (92.86%), 64 (91.43%) and from hospitals 31 (91.18%), 30 (88.24%) indicated that healthcare waste handlers were used protective clothing when handling waste and were provided with protective clothing when handling healthcare waste respectively. CONCLUSION: In this study healthcare waste management among healthcare waste handlers and healthcare facility managers were not getting full attention. Collection of healthcare waste were not done regularly, containers were not clearly marked and were not located in appropriate areas where they might be needed. Support healthcare waste handlers by training help to improve their knowledge, attitude and practice.

HIV screening among TB patients and co-trimoxazole preventive therapy for TB/HIV patients in Addis Ababa: facility based descriptive study.

BACKGROUND: Collaborative TB/HIV management is essential to ensure that HIV positive TB patients are identified and treated appropriately, and to prevent tuberculosis (TB) in HIV positive patients. The purpose of this study was to assess HIV case finding among TB patients and Co-trimoxazole Preventive Therapy (CPT) for HIV/TB patients in Addis Ababa. METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional, facility-based survey was conducted between June and July 2011. Data was collected by interviewing 834 TB patients from ten health facilities in Addis Ababa. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to summarize and analyze findings. RESULTS: The proportion of TB patients who (self reported) were offered for HIV test, tested for HIV and tested HIV positive during their anti-TB treatment follow-up were; 87.4%, 69.4% and 20.2%; respectively. Eighty seven HIV positive patients were identified, who knew their status before diagnosed for the current TB disease, bringing the cumulative prevalence of HIV among TB patients to 24.5%. Hence, the proportion of TB patients who knew their HIV status becomes 79.9%. The study revealed that 43.6% of those newly identified HIV positives during anti-TB treatment follow-up were actually treated with CPT. However, the commutative proportion of HIV positive TB patients who were ever treated with CPT was 54.4%; both those treated before the current TB disease and during anti-TB treatment follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: HIV case finding among TB patients and provision of CPT for TB/HIV co-infected patients needs boosting. Hence, routine offering of HIV test and provision of CPT for PLHIV should be strengthened in-line with the national guidelines.

Tuberculosis case finding and isoniazid preventive therapy among people living with HIV at public health facilities of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: a cross-sectional facility based study.

BACKGROUND: Activities to decrease the burden of tuberculosis (TB) among people living with HIV (PLHIV) include intensified TB case-finding (ICF), Isoniaizid (INH) preventive therapy (IPT) and infection control in health-care and congregate settings (IC). Information about the status of collaborative TB/HIV care services which decreases the burden of TB among PLHIV in Ethiopia is limited. The purpose of the study was to assess TB case finding and provision of IPT among PLHIV in Addis Ababa. METHODS: A cross sectional, facility-based survey was conducted between June 2011 and August 2011. Data was collected by interviewing 849 PLHIV from ten health facilities in Addis Ababa. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze findings and the results are described in this report. RESULTS: The proportion of PLHIV who have been screened for TB during any one of their follow-up cares was 92.8%. Eighty eight (10.4%) of the study participants have been diagnosed for TB during their HIV follow-up cares. PLHIV who had never been diagnosed for TB before they knew their positive HIV status were nearly four times more likely to be diagnosed for TB during follow-up cares than those diagnosed before (AOR [95% CI]: 3.78 [1.69-8.43]). Nearly a third (28.7%) of all interviewed PLHIV self reported that they had been treated with IPT. CONCLUSIONS: It can be concluded that ICF for TB and IPT among PLHIV in Addis Ababa need boosting. Hence, it is recommended to put into practice the national and global guidelines to improve ICF and IPT among PLHIV in the city.

Assessing the implementation of performance management of health care workers in Uganda.

BACKGROUND: The performance management concept is relatively new to the Ugandan health sector. Uganda has been implementing health sector reforms for nearly two decades. The reforms included the introduction of the results-oriented management in the public sector and the decentralisation of the management of health care workers from central to local governments. This study examined the implementation of performance management of health care workers in order to propose strategies for improvement. METHODS: The study was a descriptive survey carried out in the Kumi, Mbale, Sironko and Tororo districts and utilising mixed research methodology. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from the health care workers. A semi-structured interview guide was used to collect qualitative data from the health service managers. The sample for the quantitative method was selected using stratified random sampling. Purposive sampling was used to select health service managers. Quantitative data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (version 18.0). Qualitative data were categorised according to the themes and analysed manually. RESULTS: The findings show that to some extent performance management is implemented in the health sector; however, there were loopholes in its implementation. There were inadequacies in setting performance targets and performance management planning was hardly done. Although many health care workers had job descriptions, the performance indicators and standards were not clearly defined and known to all workers and managers. Additionally the schedules for performance assessments were not always adhered to. There were limited prospects for career progression, inadequate performance feedback and poor rewarding mechanisms. CONCLUSIONS: Performance management of health care workers is inadequately done in the districts. Performance management is a key component of attempts to improve health sector outcomes. As a result of this study, suggestions to enhance health sector performance management in the districts have been put forward. The authors are optimistic that if these suggestions are implemented, the performance of health care workers is likely to improve.

A descriptive study on health workforce performance after decentralisation of health services in Uganda.

BACKGROUND: Uganda, like many developing countries, is committed to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. However, serious challenges prove to hamper the attainment of these goals, particularly the health related MDGs. A major challenge relates to the human resources for health. The health system in Uganda was decentralised in the 1990s. Despite the health sector reforms, the services have remained significantly deficient and performance of health workers is thought to be one of the contributing factors. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to investigate the performance of health workers after decentralisation of the health services in Uganda in order to identify and suggest possible areas for improvement. METHODS: A cross-sectional descriptive survey, using quantitative research methods was utilised. A structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from 276 health workers in the districts of Kumi, Mbale, Sironko and Tororo in Eastern Uganda. The health workers included doctors, clinical officers, professional nurses and midwives. The sample was selected using stratified random sampling. The data was analysed using SPSS version 18.0 and included both univariate and bivariate analysis. The results were presented in tabular and text forms. RESULTS: The study revealed that even though the health workers are generally responsive to the needs of their clients, the services they provide are often not timely. The health workers take initiatives to ensure that they are available for work, although low staffing levels undermine these efforts. While the study shows that the health workers are productive, over half (50.4%) of them reported that their organisations do not have indicators to measure their individual performance. The findings indicate that the health workers are skilled and competent to perform their duties. In general, the results show that health workers are proficient, adaptive, proactive and client-oriented. CONCLUSION: Although Uganda is faced with a number of challenges as regards human resources for health, the findings show that the health workers that are currently working in the health facilities are enthusiastic to perform. This may serve as a motivator for the health workers to improve their performance and that of the health sector.