Service Availability and Readiness Assessment (SARA) of Health Facilities in Moyamba District Southern Province of Sierra Leone

Abstract

Sierra Leone needs strong information systems to adequately track progress made and to inform decisions about the implementation of health care programmes as it implements its recovery and resilience plans. A challenge observed with the national health management information system (HMIS) is the quality of routine reports from health facilities and districts. The objective of this research is to assess the service availability and readiness of health facilities in Moyamba district. This research was facility based cross sectional survey. A representative sample of 87 health facilities was selected for the assessment, with an oversampling of hospitals. In this sampling procedure 86% of the health facilities considered for this research were Government/Public owned facilities and 1.1% mission/faith owned facilities. Stat graphic 18 was used to do the data analysis. The district has 55% General Service Index (GSI) for all categories of health facilities. Readiness scores in preventive curative, antenatal care service and malaria services were above 90% in the district. The least readiness score was high level diagnostic equipment with 1%. Blood transmission services had the least specific readiness score of 4.3%. Government of Sierra Leone to Strengthening capacity of District Health Management Teams to plan, supervise and monitor all health facility programs at district levels.