Assessment of factors influencing acquisition and deployment of technical facilities in maternal healthcare delivery in Osun State, Nigeria

This study assessed the factors influencing the acquisition and deployment of technical facilities for maternal healthcare delivery in Osun State. A two-stage probability sampling procedure was employed to select two Local Government Areas (LGAs) from each of the three Senatorial districts of the study area. The state hospitals in each of the selected LGAs and all the tertiary hospitals in the study site were selected for the study. A total of 112 respondents (14.3%, 28.6% and 57.1% from Ede, Osun East and Ife/Ijesa senatorial districts respectively) from seven health facilities were surveyed. Data were obtained through primary and secondary sources in both secondary and tertiary health facilities. The study revealed that the factors influencing acquisition include the need and demand for a particular technical facility, increase in the number of equipment, damages to existing ones, availability of funds as well as the disposition of management authority towards the demands. Also, the deployment of these technical facilities in the various maternal healthcare units of the health facility depends on the areas of needs. Therefore, the study concluded that acquisition of technical facilities should be quickly attended to in order to shorten the purchase and installation process. Also a system of preventive maintenance, where maintenance of equipment will be done at a fixed and predetermined interval usually fixed by hours-of-operation was preferable.