Factors affecting health infrastructure conditions for service delivery in city council of Dodoma, Tanzania

Abstract

The study was conducted in the City Council of Dodoma and involved six primary public health centres, with the aim of assessing the factors affecting the conditions of health infrastructure for service delivery. It adopted a descriptive survey design while simple random sampling was used to obtain suitable respondents. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the collected data. The findings revealed that 62.5% of respondents argued that infrastructure conditions were good while 37.5% said they were bad. Also, 95.8% of respondents disclosed that the effect of improved health infrastructures was an increase in the number of patients being served, improved access to safe and affordable health services (83.3%), and adequate supply and access to essential equipment and drugs (81.9%). Furthermore, the findings indicated that six variables had significant and positive effects on the condition of health infrastructure. The variables are users’ competence (p=0.002), infrastructure overuse (p=0.004), non- compliance with terms of use (p=0.009), management quality (p=0.001), technological adoption (p=0.004) and maintenance cost (p=0.000). Nevertheless, the findings show that 75.0% of respondents cited that, among the challenges were unnecessary referrals, underperformance (69.4%), shortage of basic health equipment (63.8%), longer waiting time for the patient (44.4%), overwork and burnout among health workers (40.2%), and the large number of patients over existing health staff and equipment (30.5%). Various factors significantly influence the conditions of health infrastructure in primary health centres, which hinders the smooth delivery of health services. The government, through the Ministry of Health, and in-charge of centres should provide guidance on infrastructure use and instil maintenance behaviour among users