Factors influencing sustainability of health based projects: the case of Presbyterian church of east Africa Kikuyu hospital in Kiambu county, Kenya

Abstract

This research study aimed at investigating factors influencing sustainability of health based projects, a case of PCEA Kikuyu Hospital in Kiambu County, Kenya and to recommend areas for improvement in future. It was guided by the following objectives; to establish the extent to which community involvement influences sustainability of health based projects in Kiambu County, Kenya, to investigate the influence of service charge on sustainability of health based projects in Kiambu County, Kenya, to establish the influence of customer care on sustainability of health based projects in Kiambu County, Kenya and to investigate influence of financial sources on sustainability of health based projects in Kiambu County, Kenya. Related literature was reviewed based on the objectives of the study. The research design adopted was descriptive survey. Stratified random sampling technique was used for the study since the population was made up of different homogenous categories. A sample size of one hundred and twenty five (125) respondents was obtained from the target population of two hundred and thirty (230) Board members, Doctors, Clinical officers, Nurses and Patients. Quantitative data was analysed using SPSS computer programme version 17.0 and qualitative data manually. Presentation was done using frequency distribution tables with values and percentages. From the findings of the study, it was established that representation of the community was found to be very poor. The hospital has employees from the community ranging from 101 to 150 out of 459 as provided in the records of employees in the institution. Besides, the composition of the Elders/Women Guilds (E/WGs) in terms of gender was predominantly male (75.0%). Basing on access to basic health services of acceptable quality data analysis established that patients strongly agreed that they are satisfied with services provided in the PCEA Kikuyu hospital (50.0%) and that service charges are relatively fair and affordable to the poor (50.0%). However, Doctors (25.0%) and Nurses (26.6%) identified lack of advanced services like CT- Scan and MRI-Scan to be a serious challenge in the hospital. The researcher recommends that the managers of the health based projects should ensure that the facility is able to finance its own programs by generating enough internal income through entrepreneur strategies and adopt adaptive governance approach for greater sustainability. Dependence on external sources of funds and support should be discouraged and innovativeness of new ways in raising funds internally encouraged. The hospital should also invest more finances in modern technological machines to address the emerging medical challenges like cancer and Ebola treatment besides adopting a comprehensive scheme of service to motivate and retain professional employees. A replica of the study should be performed in other health based projects in other counties in Kenya to provide comparison in the findings.