Maintaining essential healthcare services in Addis Ababa during COVID-19: A qualitative study.

Autor: Fenta EH; School of Public Health, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia., Tassew B; School of Public Health, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia., Abera A; Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit, School of Public Health, Haramaya University, Harar, Ethiopia., Wolde FB; Knowledge Translation Directorate, Ethiopian Public Health Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia., Legesse M; School of Public Health, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia., Pulford J; Department of International Public Health, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, United Kingdom., Mor S; Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.; International Livestock Research Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia., Kaba M; School of Public Health, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2024 Dec 27; Vol. 19 (12), pp. e0308534. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Dec 27 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0308534
Abstrakt: Background: Worldwide, health systems have been challenged by the overwhelming demands of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Ethiopia, maintaining essential health services during the COVID-19 pandemic is critical to preventing severe outcomes and protecting the gains made over the past years in the health sector. This project aims to explore the health system's response to maintaining essential healthcare services in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Methods: A total of 60 key informant interviews were conducted by purposively selecting key stakeholders from Federal Ministry of Health, Addis Ababa Regional Health Bureau, Sub-city Health Offices, and frontline healthcare providers. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded using Open Code. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the data.
Result: COVID-19 affected the delivery of essential health services in several ways, namely: decline in health service utilization, fear of infection among healthcare providers, stigma towards healthcare providers, and perceived decrease in quality-of-service provision. However, the health system actors made efforts to sustain services while responding to the pandemic by enacting changes in the service delivery modality. The most significant service delivery changes included repurposing health centers and prolonged prescriptions (multi-month medication dispensing). The primary challenges encountered were burnout of the health workforce and a shortage of personal protective equipment.
Conclusion: COVID-19 has affected the delivery of essential health services in multifaceted ways. System actors have accordingly made efforts to sustain services while responding to the pandemic.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Fenta et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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