The significance of the involvement of all levels of care towards achieving effective healthcare services in Nigeria – experience from students’ vacation course

Abstract

Introduction:Generally, healthcare services are grouped into three levels: the primary, secondary and tertiary; for convenienceand effectiveness. In Nigeria, these tiers of care are coordinated at various levels of government services. Effectivehealthcare service is achievable if respective governments own up to their responsibilities to make these servicesfunctional. This will in turn reduce the burden on tertiary health institutions and thus, allow them function effectiveas training and research centres in addition to rendering care services. This study reports experiences of healthcareservices provided at various levels of care as conducted during students’ vacation course organized by the MuslimStudents’ Society of Nigeria held in December 2009 in Sokoto.

Methodology: Eight thousand people attended the vacation course; five clinics were established to provide primary care at thevarious camps during the period of the course. Basic equipment needed for patient consultation and examinationwere provided for each clinic. The clinics operated 24 hours. One medical doctor, two nurses and a pharmacytechnician were available at every shift in each of the clinics. Two general hospitals served as secondary referralcentres and one teaching hospital as tertiary referral centre.

Results: Total numbers of participants were eight thousand (8,000); 1,976 (24.7%) patients presented with various ailments and were all attended to and treated accordingly. Out of this number, only 36 (1.8%) patients were referred to secondary centres and 4(0.2%) were further referred to tertiary centre for further management.

Conclusion: This study showed that effective healthcare services with a proper referral system could be achieved if all levels of healthcare delivery work optimally. Government and policy makers should pay special attention to this in order to reduce morbidity and mortality due to unwholesome or partial care.

Keywords: Healthcare, Tiers of government, Referrals