Influence of government-community healthcare financing partnership on human and material characteristics of primary health care facilities in Anambra State, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: The Nigerian public health sector, over the years, has been characterised by inadequate funding causing decay in human, material, and services infrastructure. These along with the payment of user-fees have rendered the public health facilities unattractive and therefore poorly patronized by the people. The introduction of the government-community healthcare co-financing scheme in Anambra State of southeastern Nigeria provided additional funds to improve the quality of public health services in the State. The effect of this scheme on the human and material characteristics of primary health care facilities in the State is examined.Methods: The is a descriptive, comparative study of two health centres, one of which had intervention under the State Government-Community health care co-financing scheme.Findings: Physical infrastructure, equipments, drugs and consumables, together with the number and cadre of health providers all showed significant improvement at the intervention health centre following the introduction of the scheme, and also when compared with the control health centre. The result is a significant improvement in the overall utilization of services at the intervention health centre.Conclusions: Community based health insurance, will increase the human and material resources necessary to improve the quality of health care delivery in the community, encourage the utilization of public health facilities within the community and ultimately ensure an overall  improvement of health care delivery in the State.Keywords: Government-Community healthcare financing, Human and material characteristics, primary health care facilities, Anambra State, Nigeria.