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Stakeholders’ Perceptions on Shortage of Healthcare Workers in Primary Healthcare in Botswana: Focus Group Discussions

BACKGROUND: An adequate health workforce force is central to universal health coverage and positive public health outcomes. However many African countries have critical shortages of healthcare workers, which are worse in primary healthcare. The aim of this study was to explore the perceptions of hea...

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Autores principales: Nkomazana, Oathokwa, Mash, Robert, Shaibu, Sheila, Phaladze, Nthabiseng
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4540466/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26284617
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0135846
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author Nkomazana, Oathokwa
Mash, Robert
Shaibu, Sheila
Phaladze, Nthabiseng
author_facet Nkomazana, Oathokwa
Mash, Robert
Shaibu, Sheila
Phaladze, Nthabiseng
author_sort Nkomazana, Oathokwa
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: An adequate health workforce force is central to universal health coverage and positive public health outcomes. However many African countries have critical shortages of healthcare workers, which are worse in primary healthcare. The aim of this study was to explore the perceptions of healthcare workers, policy makers and the community on the shortage of healthcare workers in Botswana. METHOD: Fifteen focus group discussions were conducted with three groups of policy makers, six groups of healthcare workers and six groups of community members in rural, urban and remote rural health districts of Botswana. All the participants were 18 years and older. Recruitment was purposive and the framework method was used to inductively analyse the data. RESULTS: There was a perceived shortage of healthcare workers in primary healthcare, which was believed to result from an increased need for health services, inequitable distribution of healthcare workers, migration and too few such workers being trained. Migration was mainly the result of unfavourable personal and family factors, weak and ineffective healthcare and human resources management, low salaries and inadequate incentives for rural and remote area service. CONCLUSIONS: Botswana has a perceived shortage of healthcare workers, which is worse in primary healthcare and rural areas, as a result of multiple complex factors. To address the scarcity the country should train adequate numbers of healthcare workers and distribute them equitably to sufficiently resourced healthcare facilities. They should be competently managed and adequately remunerated and the living conditions and rural infrastructure should also be improved.
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spelling pubmed-45404662015-08-24 Stakeholders’ Perceptions on Shortage of Healthcare Workers in Primary Healthcare in Botswana: Focus Group Discussions Nkomazana, Oathokwa Mash, Robert Shaibu, Sheila Phaladze, Nthabiseng PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: An adequate health workforce force is central to universal health coverage and positive public health outcomes. However many African countries have critical shortages of healthcare workers, which are worse in primary healthcare. The aim of this study was to explore the perceptions of healthcare workers, policy makers and the community on the shortage of healthcare workers in Botswana. METHOD: Fifteen focus group discussions were conducted with three groups of policy makers, six groups of healthcare workers and six groups of community members in rural, urban and remote rural health districts of Botswana. All the participants were 18 years and older. Recruitment was purposive and the framework method was used to inductively analyse the data. RESULTS: There was a perceived shortage of healthcare workers in primary healthcare, which was believed to result from an increased need for health services, inequitable distribution of healthcare workers, migration and too few such workers being trained. Migration was mainly the result of unfavourable personal and family factors, weak and ineffective healthcare and human resources management, low salaries and inadequate incentives for rural and remote area service. CONCLUSIONS: Botswana has a perceived shortage of healthcare workers, which is worse in primary healthcare and rural areas, as a result of multiple complex factors. To address the scarcity the country should train adequate numbers of healthcare workers and distribute them equitably to sufficiently resourced healthcare facilities. They should be competently managed and adequately remunerated and the living conditions and rural infrastructure should also be improved. Public Library of Science 2015-08-18 /pmc/articles/PMC4540466/ /pubmed/26284617 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0135846 Text en © 2015 Nkomazana et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Nkomazana, Oathokwa
Mash, Robert
Shaibu, Sheila
Phaladze, Nthabiseng
Stakeholders’ Perceptions on Shortage of Healthcare Workers in Primary Healthcare in Botswana: Focus Group Discussions
title Stakeholders’ Perceptions on Shortage of Healthcare Workers in Primary Healthcare in Botswana: Focus Group Discussions
title_full Stakeholders’ Perceptions on Shortage of Healthcare Workers in Primary Healthcare in Botswana: Focus Group Discussions
title_fullStr Stakeholders’ Perceptions on Shortage of Healthcare Workers in Primary Healthcare in Botswana: Focus Group Discussions
title_full_unstemmed Stakeholders’ Perceptions on Shortage of Healthcare Workers in Primary Healthcare in Botswana: Focus Group Discussions
title_short Stakeholders’ Perceptions on Shortage of Healthcare Workers in Primary Healthcare in Botswana: Focus Group Discussions
title_sort stakeholders’ perceptions on shortage of healthcare workers in primary healthcare in botswana: focus group discussions
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4540466/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26284617
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0135846
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