BACKGROUND The Nursing Act 33 of 2005 holds nurse practitioners responsible for all acts and omissions in the delivery of quality patient care. But quality patient care is influenced by a number of factors beyond the control of nurse practitioners. Patient safety culture is one such factor and is seldom explored in hospitals in developing countries. This article describes the patient safety cul...

The role of the leader of a medical unit has evolved over time to expand from simply a medical role to a more managerial one. This study aimed to explore how the behavior of a hospital-based emergency department's (ED's) leader might be related to ED unit performance and ED employees' work satisfaction. One hundred and twelve hospital-based EDs in Taiwan were studied: 10 in medical centers, 32 ...

Small hospitals sit at the apex of the pyramid of primary care in the health systems of many low-income countries. If the Millennium Development Goal for child survival is to be achieved, hospital care for referred severely ill children will need to be improved considerably in parallel with primary care in many countries. Yet little is known about how to achieve this. This article describes the...

BACKGROUND The hierarchical pyramid inside Spanish public hospitals was radically changed by the Health Reform Law promulgated in 1986. According to it, the manpower of the hospitals was divided into three divisions (Medical, Nursing, General Services/Administration), which from then on occupied the same level, only subject to the general manager. Ten years after the implementation of the law, ...

I am a pediatric emergency physician in Calgary, Alta, and have been active in international health for more than 25 years. The last time I had been in Africa was in 1985 when I ran a district hospital in Lesotho in southern Africa. My husband and I had always wanted to return to the continent but career, children, and time got in the way. When those factors finally aligned, we were able to onc...

The diagnosis of Buruli ulcer should be considered in all painless undermined ulcers in the tropics. The diagnosis and treatment are a challenge in rural settings despite the well established tuberculosis programmes. Immediate commencement on rifampicin and streptomycin is essential to halt the progression of disease and to, hopefully, reverse it. Surgery is indicated in those with complex ulc...

Case detection, diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis 1 B) in children are challenging issues vorldwide. This study in Afghanistan aimed to evaluate paediatric TB case management, including contact investigation, at health facilities where all diagnostic processes were available. In 7 out of 8 regions of the country 1 province was selected. Documents used for management of paediatric TB cases...

The study examined the patterns of disclosing the HIV diagnosis to infected children and family members, and determined the demographic characteristics associated with disclosure. Semi structured interviews were conducted with caregivers of HIV infected children aged 4 17 years receiving antiretroviral treatment (ART). A total of 149 caregivers were recruited from a paediatric HIV clinic of a d...

A nonsystematic survey of plagiarism, misrepresentation, and fraud in British medical research found that such cases are known to only a few people, that little of the published work is retracted, and that few institutions have any formal mechanism for dealing with instances of medical misconduct. The author believes that the problem is considerably larger than indicated by the survey, particu...

BACKGROUND Aim of this study was to determine the dimensions of the service quality in the public hospitals and evaluate the determinants of client satisfaction in obstetric health in the context of Pakistan. METHODS The present research evaluates the application of an integrated client satisfaction model that draws mainly from the original SERVQUAL framework in obstetric health services. We ...