Skip to main content

Access to Health

One of the great issues that occupied the imagination of health care workers, health policymakers, and as well as a politician is equal access to health. This means wherever you are, ideally, you should have the same access to at least the basic health care. What is basic healthcare? That is a discussion for another time. However, we should not mix accessibility with affordability as these are two different concepts. There are different metrics to measure access to health but today I want to discuss two metrics in particular.

 

The first one is the health facility density by state. It measures the number of health facilities per 100,000 population. It is a crude way to measure and compare the availability of care facilities in a certain geographical location. This includes all type of facilities private or publicly owned.


Source: OCHA Sudan

 


 

As you can see from the graph, the Northern state has the most Basic health units and Hospitals compared to its population despite that quarter of basic health units are closed.  When you look at the Health centres, The River Nile State takes the first spot with more than 15 hospitals per 100,000 population. Khartoum has only more than 5 for 100,000 population.  However, I would regard these numbers with caution as I do not know on average, how long does it take to reach a health facility.

Al-Jazirah State has the highest number of basic health units in total (480 units, ratio 10 - 15/100,000) while East Darfur has only 32 Basic Health Unit (ratio 1.8 - 5/100,000).

 

In Summary, when it comes to access to health care facilities, The northern region of Sudan seems like have it all if you are just looking at the numbers. Also, from just looking at the numbers, Khartoum state and East Darfur have the same ratio of Basic Health Units. If you believe in equal health access, how these numbers are going to affect the health policy you won't pursue to achieve equal access?

 

Next, let’s have a look at the distribution of health care worker distribution between Sudan’s States.  


Resources:


[Number and distribution of health facilities per 10,000 population — MEASURE Evaluation](https://www.measureevaluation.org/prh/rh_indicators/health-systems/hss/number-and-distribution-of-health-facilities-per)

[Sudan | Situation Reports](https://reports.unocha.org/en/country/sudan)

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I am Sudanese and I have the DNA to prove it!!!

People keep asking me why I did it? I did it for one reason,  Knowledge. In Sudan we always ask the question of who we are and where did we come from?! So I did send my Saliva for DNA testing . The service provide you information in regard to your health and ancestry. The service is called 23andme.com , you can check the website if you are looking for more information or explanation of what am about to say, they have nice videos. You will notice from the graph the DNA analysis concluded I am half north african  and the rest, or most of it,  is Sub- Saharan African .  I have no doubt this represent most of North Sudanese with different percentages for each one. It basically showed that my Y chromosome did come from North aftrica, you get your Y chromosome from your father who in turn got it from my Grandfather and so on. My my Mitochondria, which the organism that provide energy to most cells int he body, was handed to me from from my mother, ...
4 comments
Read more

Girifna!

  I know everyone now is concerned with referendum and likely separation of south Sudan but let us go back to the election period and have a look on this video. Recently there has been this movement called “Girifna” which in Arabic means “we are fed up”, I know it sounds strange that one world translate into three worlds in English. Since the aftermath of the election the movement seems to be getting weaker and lost momentum! i guess it was inspired by arising hope of change and the possibility  that there will be a new face for Sudan politics, but the hope was shattered by the announcement of Bashir victory.  Did anyone hear anything since that time about Girifna? you can find them at http://www.girifna.com/ Sudanese Elections: Music & the Vote with NasJota and Girifna from Michal Shapiro on Vimeo . Girifna Related articles by Zemanta Activists, Journalists Increasingly Threatened in Sudan (humanrights.change.org) Sudan suspends BBC A...
2 comments
Read more

Sudan: History of a Broken Land

This is a good documentary about Sudan before the separation of the south from the north. it was aired by  Al-Jazeera English  almost more than a year ago. it just showed how politicians messed up Sudan for the coming generations. I would say it is relevant to current situation as we as Sudanese are repeating the same mistakes but now in  Darfur , Kurdofan , and Blue Nile . Al Sadiq is right about one thing, the north has to apologies for associating salivary with the degree of blackness. Related articles Security talks between Sudan & S.Sudan break up with no deal UN official criticizes videotaped remarks by S. Kordofan governor Sudan' ruling party denies early elections Darfur's border patrol force in dispute with central government
Post a Comment
Read more