By: Nyima Sillah
The Citizen Report Card (CRC) Survey conducted by the Centre for Policy Research and Strategic Studies (CepRass) has found that Janjangbureh has the greatest problem in accessing health services.
Revealed in Basse last week, the report indicated that insights from the individual councils indicated that Janjangbureh has the greatest problem with access to health services with more than 75% of respondents considering access to health as either poor or very poor followed by Basse at 62%, and Kuntaur having the least unfavorable rating at 50%.
Conversely, Kuntaur has the largest favorable rating with more than 20% considering access to health services to be either good or very good followed by Basse at 13% and then Janjangbureh at 9%.
“This pattern is explained by the lower portion of the respondents with a fair assessment of health access in Janjangbureh (15%) compared to Kuntuar (27%) and Basse (25%),” the report revealed. “More effort is needed in all councils, especially in Janjangbureh, to improve access to health services through not only providing healthcare facilities but also ensuring that rural roads are accessible and the costof healthcare is heavily subsidized,” it recommended.
According to the report, the combined analysis of all regions offers a comprehensive overview of the citizens’ perceptions,regarding access to health services. Notably, 62% of respondents rated perceived access to health services as either poor or very poor compared to less than 15% that consider access to health services as either good or very good.
“This shows the huge level of dissatisfaction in access to health services in these regions among people. These results are not surprising given that all three councils are situated in rural Gambia and lack the many social amenities that are easily accessible in urban areas. The councils need to double their efforts in providing access to health care services in their communities,” the report showed.
The survey also indicated that the cost of health services in all regions showed that nearly 70% of respondents consider the cost of health services as either expensive or very expensive while only 6% consider the cost as cheap.
“The gap is large and it suggests the heavy burden of providing health care services to residents in these local government areas. Affordable health care service is essential to free up resources to be spent on other social sectors and for investment purposes,’’ the report highlighted.
The survey report stated that Janjangbureh and Basse have the most expensive healthcare services with at least 75% of respondents indicating that the cost of healthcare is either expensive or very expensive while Kuntaur has a lower rating at 54%. Conversely, Kuntaur has the largest percentage which suggests that the cost of health care is cheap at 13%, followed by Janjangbureh and Basse both at 3%.
The report, however, indicated that the regions with the poorest quality of health according to the perception of residents are Kuntaur and Janjangbureh.
“Basse has only 37% of respondents that consider the quality of healthcare services to be either poor or very poor while in Janjangbureh and Kuntaur, the portion is at least half of the respondents. It is noteworthy that a significant portion of the respondents consider quality to be fair in all regions with Kuntaur recording the largest at 34% and Janjangbureh the lowest at 31%,” revealed the survey.