Preparedness of governmental hospitals for COVID 19 prevention and care in Eastern Amhara region, Amhara Ethiopia, 2020

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease affects the world in multidisciplinary ways. In Ethiopia, it affects many people, including health professionals. Health institutions should have been ready to handle COVID-19 cases and protect their staff from this pandemic. Hospitals in eastern Amhara provide services for more than 30 million people. OBJECTIVES: To assess the readiness of government hospitals in eastern Amhara for coronavirus disease prevention and treatment in 2019. METHODS: The institutional-based descriptive cross-sectional study design was conducted in 28 governmental hospitals in the eastern Amhara region. A structured checklist exported to the word processing system online link was created. Randomly selected nurses in each hospital were virtually trained and collected the data; the link was shared with them. We use SPSS version 23 for data cleaning and analysis. For data summary and presentation, frequency, mean, tables, graphs, and text were used. Using concept analysis, different sections of these hospitals were assessed. A linear regression was done and Pearson correlation coefficient (r) values were used to measure the degree of relationship between dependent and independent variables. RESULTS: This study indicates that more than half (57.14%) responded "no" to the questions, suggesting unpreparedness. The age of the hospital (r = 0.25), distance from the regional capital city (r = 0.113), distance from the capital city (r = 0.125), and location of the hospital (r = 0.094) had little relationship with the readiness of the hospital for COVID-19 disease prevention and care. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: In this most hospitals were not ready to handle COVID-19 cases and couldn't protect staff from this pandemic. Therefore, local and regional health offices and the federal ministry of health, as well as other health organizations, should enhance their capacity to fight COVID 19.