LOCATIONAL ANALYSIS OF HEALTHCARE FACILITIES IN KEFFI LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF NASARAWA STATE, NIGERIA
LOCATIONAL ANALYSIS OF HEALTHCARE FACILITIES IN KEFFI LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF NASARAWA STATE, NIGERIA
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2015-06
Authors
INARIGU, Danjuma
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This work is on the locational analysis of health facilities in Keffi Local Government Area of Nasarawa State of Nigeria. The locations of 30 health care facilities which consist of hospitals, health centres and clinics were ascertained using Global Positioning System (GPS) and their addresses were collected from the Ministry of health and verified through field check. These were used to create a database. Parameters such as ownership and category were also included in the database. Arc GIS 10.0, was employed in analyzing these data. The database created was imported from Microsoft excel to Arc GIS environment where attribute data was linked to the spatial data. The linking of these two types of data made it possible to examine the spatial distribution of the facilities which in turn revealed that of the 30 Health Care Facilities, 23 or 66.7% are PHC, 6 or 20% are SCH and 1 HCF (i.e 3.33%) is a Tertiary HCF. A query further revealed that there are only six (6) public healthcare facilities representing (20%) and (80%) twenty four (24) private healthcare facilities in the study area. The result showed that there is gross inadequacy in the number of health professionals in the study area with respect to the standards for sitting PHC. The result also revealed that the ratio of patient to doctor and nurses to patient is high in Angwan Rimi ward (1:246 and 1:163) than any other wards. Again, the healthcare facilities were seen to be unevenly distributed. The spatial distribution of healthcare facilities in study area gave rise to a nucleated pattern; that is the facilities were concentrated in the core indigenous areas of the town. This implies that the health service providers were clustered at a point and people needing the healthcare service will have to travel through all forms of distances in other to utilize the health services in the study area. The research recommended that the Government should locate new healthcare facilities in Sabon Gari, Agwan Iya ii, and Goriya wards, also the Government should also provide the necessary facilities to attract private health managers to other locations within the study area so as to encourage equal spatial distribution of the healthcare facilities in Keffi Local Government Area
Description
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER OF SCIENCE (MSc) DEGREE IN REMOTE SENSING AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY, FACULTY OF SCIENCE, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA, NIGERIA
Keywords
LOCATIONAL ANALYSIS,, HEALTHCARE FACILITIES,, KEFFI LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA,, NASARAWA STATE,, NIGERIA,