BACKGROUND Knowledge of treatment cost is essential in assessing cost effectiveness in healthcare. Evidence of the potential impact of implementing available interventions against childhood illnesses in developing countries challenges us to define the costs of treating these diseases. The purpose of this study is to describe the total costs associated with treatment of pneumonia, malaria and me...

The Sixth Biennial Survey of Staffing in Cardiology was conducted in July 1990. This report summarises the data that were collected, together with the results of a survey of facilities in cardiology made in 1989. The total number of cardiologists in the United Kingdom, defined as individuals trained in the specialty and spending at least 40% of their time working in it, is now 323. Six individu...

An arts project was initiated at the newly rebuilt district hospital in the city of Exeter in south west England. This paper describes an independent research evaluation project covering the period from its inception in 1992. The findings include both qualitative and economic aspects and were compared with the authors' wider experience of similar projects. For the first time the responses of cl...

conclusions the results indicated that suitable facilities and equipment, human resources, and infrastructure were available in the district hospitals in iran. these findings showed that there is potential for the district hospitals to provide care in a wider spectrum. results in this study, 100% of the studied hospitals had oxygen cylinders, running water, electricity, anesthesia machines, eme...

In a rural district hospital in Kenya, the authors screened 100 randomly selected outpatients for khat (miraa) chewing. A surprisingly high number of them admitted chewing khat leaves. The implications of this finding and the controversy about whether or not khat is a harmful drug are discussed.

Referral of extremely low birthweight infants (less than 1001 g) from district hospitals in a geographically defined area to a specialist regional centre significantly improved their chances of survival.

childbirth is associated with poorchild growth in developingcountries.We describe the association between psychologicalmorbidityduringpregnancy and lowbirthweight (52.5 kg).Acohort of 270 motherswas recruited froma district hospital in Goa,India; allmothers were interviewedwith a screening questionnaire for psychologicalmorbidity. Babies of 250 motherswere reviewed at birthtomeasure their weigh...

BACKGROUND The theme of the 2014 Southern African Rural Health Conference was 'Building resilience in facing rural realities'. Retaining health professionals in South Africa is critical for sustainable health services. Only 12% of doctors and 19% of nurses have been retained in the rural areas. The aim of the workshop was to understand from health practitioners why they continued working in the...

BACKGROUND Scarcity of resources for healthcare is a well-acknowledged problem. In this context, efficient utilization of existing financial and human resources becomes crucial for strengthening the healthcare delivery. The assessment of efficiency of health facilities can guide decision makers in ensuring the optimum utilization of available resources. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study w...

BACKGROUND We wanted to try to account for worker motivation as a key factor that might affect the success of an intervention to improve implementation of health worker practices in eight district hospitals in Kenya. In the absence of available tools, we therefore aimed to develop a tool that could enable a rapid measurement of motivation at baseline and at subsequent points during the 18-month...