Spatial Distribution of the Primary Health Care Facilities...

SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIMARY HEALTH CARE FACILITIES IN ENUGU STATE, NIGERIA (A GIS Approach ) By Adewara Monsur Babalola thawben@gmail.com,monsurbabalola@yahoo.com Abstract The analytical capability of GIS has been explored in this work in an attempt to enhance the distribution of primary health care services in Enugu State Southeast Nigeria. With due consideration to the importance of health to the overall well being of every nation, the need for effective planning and management of the health care facilities in order to achieve optimum result in the country, can not be overemphasized. Information as to what is where is ever useful for any meaningful planning programme to be achieved. To facilitate the necessary information†¦show more content†¦Thus, necessitate the present research interest in solving the problem where the political willingness is available to implement recommendations. 3. Aim and Objectives of the Project The aim of the project is to investigate the nature of spatial distribution of primary health care service delivery in the state This aim is set to be actualized through a number of objectives namely †¢ To identify and acquire the most crucial or relevant dataset/information about f location of medical facilities, prevailing manpower and equipment from reliable source. †¢ To develop a GIS database for the acquired information about the medical facilities in the study area †¢ To determine spatial efficiency (in terms of geographical coverage) of the existing medical facilities in the study area. †¢ To determine community based accessibility/proximity to the nearest medical facility. †¢ To determine the ratio of man to prevailing medical facility (RMF) The actualization of these objectives using GIS as a decision support tool will ultimately assist the government in health sectorial reform 4. Project Justification Nigeria is renowned to have the highest figure (704-1500 deaths in 100,000 lives) for mortality rate in the world (Lanre- Abass, 2008). This is also true for infant mortality which is reported to be of about 73.34 deaths in 1000 births (Awosika-Olumo, 2002). These figures are alarming and threatening and a