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Browsing College of Social Sciences by Author "Abaliwano, Joyce"

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    A data envelopment analysis of technical efficiency and total factor productivity of maternity units of regional referral hospitals in Uganda
    (2019) Abaliwano, Joyce
    Uganda’s women constitute 52 percent of the total population with 38.7 percent in the productive age of 15 to 49 years. The fertility rate of 5.4 children per woman with an annual population growth rate of 3 percent (UBOS 2018). At the time of the pregnancy, it’s expected that all pregnant women have access to health units and are attended to by skilled personnel. However twenty seven percent of the pregnant women do not deliver in health units. Furthermore, there is a visible gap between the availability of staff in the rural and urban health units yet 76 percent of the population is rural. In the year 2000, Government of Uganda made reforms in the health sector that are intended to improve services delivery through increased efficiency, equity in access and utilization. This necessitated either increase in budget allocations to 15 percent or ensure improvement of efficiency and productivity in public hospital. The latter has implications on the tax base and may not be practical in the short run, making the former the most plausible option of improving efficiency and productivity. Improvement of efficiency requires evaluation of the performance of maternity units at regional referral hospital level. Efficiency in the maternity units is crucial if maternity rate is to reduce and enable achievement of global and national development goals. This study measured technical and scale efficiency while evaluating the total factor productivity of the maternity units in regional referral hospitals for 2012 to 2016. Non parametric Data Envelopment analysis approach is used in the measurement of hospital technical efficiency whilst the DEA- Malmquist index is used in total factor productivity change. The results indicate existence of varying degree of technical and scale inefficiency in the maternity units at the individual referral hospital, at regional and regional levels. The national result presents 16.5 percent total factor productivity growth resulting from 9.4 and 7.8 percent growth in technical efficiency change and technological change. The results indicate a need to increase the stock of capital in maternity units as a way of facilitating growth in size of the units to guarantee growth in total factor productivity and improvements in the maternal health outcomes in particular and health status in general