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Conflict, healthcare and professional perseverance: A qualitative study in a remote hospital in an Anglophone Region of Cameroon

Armed conflicts are a major contributor to global disease burden owing to their deleterious effects on health and healthcare delivery. The Anglophone crisis in Cameroon is one of the ongoing conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa and has led to massive displacement of healthcare workers (HCWs). However, so...

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Autores principales: Niba, Juste Ongeh, Ngasa, Stewart Ndutard, Chang, Neh, Sanji, Eric, Awa, Anne-Marie, Dingana, Therence Nwana, Sama, Carlson Babila, Tchouda, Leticia, Julius, Mekolle Enongene
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10021219/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36962876
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001145
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author Niba, Juste Ongeh
Ngasa, Stewart Ndutard
Chang, Neh
Sanji, Eric
Awa, Anne-Marie
Dingana, Therence Nwana
Sama, Carlson Babila
Tchouda, Leticia
Julius, Mekolle Enongene
author_facet Niba, Juste Ongeh
Ngasa, Stewart Ndutard
Chang, Neh
Sanji, Eric
Awa, Anne-Marie
Dingana, Therence Nwana
Sama, Carlson Babila
Tchouda, Leticia
Julius, Mekolle Enongene
author_sort Niba, Juste Ongeh
collection PubMed
description Armed conflicts are a major contributor to global disease burden owing to their deleterious effects on health and healthcare delivery. The Anglophone crisis in Cameroon is one of the ongoing conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa and has led to massive displacement of healthcare workers (HCWs). However, some HCWs have stayed back and continued working. An understanding of their experiences, perspectives and professional perseverance is lacking. We designed a phenomenological study using Focused Group Discussions (FGDs) and in-depth interviews to: understand the experiences of 12 HCWs in a remote hospital in the North West region of Cameroon with armed groups; evaluate how it affects healthcare delivery from HCWs perspective and examine HCWs coping mechanisms during the conflict with a view of informing HCW protection policies in conflict zones. Results revealed that HCWs go through all forms of violence including threats, assaults and murders. Overall insecurity and shortage of health personnel were major barriers to healthcare delivery which contributed to underutilization of healthcare services. Participants observed an increase in complications due to malaria, malnutrition and a rise in maternal and infant mortality. The hospital management and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) played an essential role in HCWs adaptation to the crisis. Nevertheless they unanimously advocated for a cease fire to end the conflict. In the meantime, passion for their job was the main motivating factor to stay at work.
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spelling pubmed-100212192023-03-17 Conflict, healthcare and professional perseverance: A qualitative study in a remote hospital in an Anglophone Region of Cameroon Niba, Juste Ongeh Ngasa, Stewart Ndutard Chang, Neh Sanji, Eric Awa, Anne-Marie Dingana, Therence Nwana Sama, Carlson Babila Tchouda, Leticia Julius, Mekolle Enongene PLOS Glob Public Health Research Article Armed conflicts are a major contributor to global disease burden owing to their deleterious effects on health and healthcare delivery. The Anglophone crisis in Cameroon is one of the ongoing conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa and has led to massive displacement of healthcare workers (HCWs). However, some HCWs have stayed back and continued working. An understanding of their experiences, perspectives and professional perseverance is lacking. We designed a phenomenological study using Focused Group Discussions (FGDs) and in-depth interviews to: understand the experiences of 12 HCWs in a remote hospital in the North West region of Cameroon with armed groups; evaluate how it affects healthcare delivery from HCWs perspective and examine HCWs coping mechanisms during the conflict with a view of informing HCW protection policies in conflict zones. Results revealed that HCWs go through all forms of violence including threats, assaults and murders. Overall insecurity and shortage of health personnel were major barriers to healthcare delivery which contributed to underutilization of healthcare services. Participants observed an increase in complications due to malaria, malnutrition and a rise in maternal and infant mortality. The hospital management and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) played an essential role in HCWs adaptation to the crisis. Nevertheless they unanimously advocated for a cease fire to end the conflict. In the meantime, passion for their job was the main motivating factor to stay at work. Public Library of Science 2022-11-29 /pmc/articles/PMC10021219/ /pubmed/36962876 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001145 Text en © 2022 Niba et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Niba, Juste Ongeh
Ngasa, Stewart Ndutard
Chang, Neh
Sanji, Eric
Awa, Anne-Marie
Dingana, Therence Nwana
Sama, Carlson Babila
Tchouda, Leticia
Julius, Mekolle Enongene
Conflict, healthcare and professional perseverance: A qualitative study in a remote hospital in an Anglophone Region of Cameroon
title Conflict, healthcare and professional perseverance: A qualitative study in a remote hospital in an Anglophone Region of Cameroon
title_full Conflict, healthcare and professional perseverance: A qualitative study in a remote hospital in an Anglophone Region of Cameroon
title_fullStr Conflict, healthcare and professional perseverance: A qualitative study in a remote hospital in an Anglophone Region of Cameroon
title_full_unstemmed Conflict, healthcare and professional perseverance: A qualitative study in a remote hospital in an Anglophone Region of Cameroon
title_short Conflict, healthcare and professional perseverance: A qualitative study in a remote hospital in an Anglophone Region of Cameroon
title_sort conflict, healthcare and professional perseverance: a qualitative study in a remote hospital in an anglophone region of cameroon
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10021219/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36962876
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001145
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