Absenteeism
Absenteeism among health care workers is a barrier to effective health service delivery and is caused by a number of factors.
Governments in developing countries spend substantial amounts of money on public services including publicly supplied health care. Despite this, dissatisfaction is frequently expressed over the performance and quality of these services. One possible reason for this is that not enough money is allocated to them; another is that the money is not spent effectively. The paper Ghost doctors attempts to quantify one particular way in which public money may not be spent effectively via a study in which unannounced visits were made to health clinics in Bangladesh with the intention of discovering what fraction of medical professionals were present at their assigned post.
This survey represents the first attempt to quantify the extent of this problem on a nationally representative scale. Nationwide, the average number of vacancies over all types of providers in rural health centres is a very large 26 per cent. Regionally, vacancy rates (unfilled posts) are generally higher in the poorer parts of the country. Absentee rates at over 40 per cent are particularly high for doctors. When separated into level of facility, the absentee rate for doctors at the larger clinics is 40 per cent but at the smaller sub-centres with a single doctor, the rate is 74 per cent. Even though the primary purpose of this survey was to document the extent of this problem among medical staff, we also explore the determinants of staff absenteeism. Whether the medical provider lives near the health facility, has access to a road, and rural electrification, are important determinants of the rate and pattern of staff absentee rates
Governments in developing countries spend substantial amounts of money on public services including publicly supplied health care. Despite this, dissatisfaction is frequently expressed over the performance and quality of these services. One possible reason for this is that not enough money is allocated to them; another is that the money is not spent effectively. The paper Ghost doctors attempts to quantify one particular way in which public money may not be spent effectively via a study in which unannounced visits were made to health clinics in Bangladesh with the intention of discovering what fraction of medical professionals were present at their assigned post.
This survey represents the first attempt to quantify the extent of this problem on a nationally representative scale. Nationwide, the average number of vacancies over all types of providers in rural health centres is a very large 26 per cent. Regionally, vacancy rates (unfilled posts) are generally higher in the poorer parts of the country. Absentee rates at over 40 per cent are particularly high for doctors. When separated into level of facility, the absentee rate for doctors at the larger clinics is 40 per cent but at the smaller sub-centres with a single doctor, the rate is 74 per cent. Even though the primary purpose of this survey was to document the extent of this problem among medical staff, we also explore the determinants of staff absenteeism. Whether the medical provider lives near the health facility, has access to a road, and rural electrification, are important determinants of the rate and pattern of staff absentee rates
- Ghost doctors: absenteeism in Bangladeshi health facilities
- ( N. Chaudhury; J.S. Hammer / World Bank , 2003)
- Against a background of criticism regarding the misuse and leakage of resources in the public health services in developing countries, the authors seek to address the issue of absenteeism of health wo...
- Wastage in the health workforce: some perspectives from African countries
- ( D. Dovlo / Human Resources for Health , 2005)
- This paper, from Human Resources for Health, explores health workforce "wastage" in sub-Saharan Africa. Wastage is where training and deployment does not improve productivity and where the full poten...
