Analysis of Spatio-Physical Accessibility of Healthcare Facilities in Nangere Local Government Area of Yobe State, Nigeria

Abstract

Accessibility to healthcare facilities has been identified as a major indicator of development. Improving health services is a crucial issue and an immense challenge for the government of any third world country. The paper analyzed the spatio-physical accessibility of healthcare facilities in Nangere local government of Yobe state. Record on the number of healthcare facilities (HCFs) from the Ministry of Health was obtained. Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver was used to obtain geographic coordinates of the HCFs and human settlement. Spider diagram algorithm and ring buffer technique was used to determine the spatio-physical accessibility distance and travel time from designated settlement (ward) to the various physical healthcare facilities. This analysis was applied to settlement in the research area, allowing geographical access to be linked to people.  Six queries were run to identify areas that are not within WHO range, the queries include 1000m buffer query, 2000m buffer query, 3000m buffer query, 4000m buffer query, 5000m buffer query and above 5000m buffer query in each ward to check accessibility of the residents. The queries were run using SQL on each buffer set around the health facilities in order to identify the settlements fall within each buffer query. The result further indicated that the minimum distance from the settlement to the nearest facility in each ward was 0.107km while the maximum distance was 12.829km. The settlements that fall above 5000m buffer query had the highest minimum converted travel time on foot of 51.1 minutes while those that fall within a buffer query of 1000m had the least minimum converted travel time on foot while the settlements that fall above 5000m buffer query had the highest maximum converted travel time on foot of 51.1 minutes while those that fall within a buffer query of 1000m had the least minimum converted travel time on foot of 1.4 minute to reach health facility. The study concluded that the wards in the study area have physical access to HCFs but lack of good roads and transport facilities especially in the rainy season and travel time.