By September 2022, public hospitals in the country were buckling under backlogs of more than 175,000 surgeries. Earlier in the year Spotlight published a two-part series on the human cost of surgical delays and asked what could be done about it.
One solution proposed by some surgical experts is to devolve less-complicated surgical procedures to district hospitals closer to patients. The AfroSurg3 Conference held at the end of September, however, shed some light on the often suboptimal conditions for surgical care at district hospitals, especially in rural areas, and showed that it will take time, effort and resources to make such an approach work……more
Health workers are trained to perform minor surgeries, but the problem is,this health facilities are not equipped with the necessary tools,suplies and equipment..
There is also work burn out, as most health facilities do not have the required health workers, as per the WHO standards
The situation is made worse by lack of refresher courses to update the skills and the competence of health workers