Evaluation of healthcare facilities and personnel distribution in Lagos State: implications on universal health coverage.

BACKGROUND: Nigeria is considering making Universal Health Coverage (UHC) a common policy goal to ensure that citizens have access to high-quality healthcare services without crippling debt. Globally, there is an acute shortage of human resources for Health (HRH), and the most significant burden is borne by low-income countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. This shortage has considerably constrained the achievement of health-related development goals and impeded accelerated progress towards universal health coverage. We examine the existing human resource capacity and the distribution of health facilities in Lagos state in this study, discussing the implications of our findings.

METHODS: The study is descriptive using secondary data analysis. We leverage census-based primary data collected by NOIPoll on health facility assessments in Lagos state. The collected data was analyzed using counts, ratios, rates, and percentages.

RESULTS: We observe a ratio of 5,014 people to 1 general medical doctor, 2,942 people to 1 specialist, 2,165 people to 1 nurse, and 5,117 people to 1 midwife, which are far higher than the WHO recommendation. We also observe that the ratio of nurses to general medical practitioners is 2.2:1 in urban areas and 2.7:1 in rural. In contrast, the ratio of nurses to specialist medical doctors is 1.3:1 in the urban area and 1.5:1 in the rural areas of Lagos state. The overall nurse per general medical practitioner ratio is 2.3:1 and 1.4:1 for specialist medical doctors. 77.2% of the health facilities surveyed were in the urban areas, with private-for-profit facilities accounting for 82.9%, government facilities accounting for 15.4%, and NGOs/faith clinics accounting for 1.7%. Primary healthcare facilities account for 75.3% of the facilities surveyed, secondary and tertiary facilities account for 24.6% and 0.08%, respectively. Alimosho LGA has the most health facilities (77.38% PHCs, and 22.62% SHCs) and staff strength specifically for general medical practitioners, specialists, nurses, and midwives (16.9%, 19.9%, 16.7%, 17.1%, respectively). Eti-Osa LGA has the best density ratio for generalist doctors, specialist doctors, and nurses per 10,000 (4.42, 12.96, and 11.34 respectively), while Ikeja has the best midwife population density ratio 5.46 per 10,000 population.

CONCLUSION: : The distribution of health personnel and facilities in Lagos State is not equitable, with evident variation between rural and urban areas. This inequitable distribution could affect the physical distance of health facilities to residents, leading to decreased utilization, ultimately poor health outcomes, and impaired access. Much like child mortality, maternal mortality also exhibits a correlation with healthcare worker density. As the physician density increases linearly, the maternal mortality rate decreases exponentially. However, due to the low number of healthcare workers in Lagos state, doctors, nurses, and midwives are frequently unavailable during childbirth, resulting in increasing infant, neonatal, and maternal death. As such, the government should adopt the UHC strategy in its distribution of facilities and personnel in the state for adequate coverage and optimal performance of the facilities. Also, additional investments are needed in some parts of the state to improve access to tertiary health facilities and leverage private sector capacity.