Abstract
The purpose of this study was to survey the opinions of health care providers and clients on the transfer of sub-district health promoting hospitals (SHPH) to the Provincial Administrative Organization during the first three months. The questionnaire surveys were conducted on whether they agreed or disagreed on various issues. Among health care providers, the questionnaire investigated issues of adequacy of personnel and resources, receiving important information from the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH), coordination with the MOPH, the ability to provide comments and suggestions to the management, happiness at work, and the ability to provide services to people in the area. While among clients, the questionnaire investigated issues of adequacy of personnel, service quality, ability to provide opinions and suggestions to the SHPH, recommendation to others of using the service, and satisfaction with the services. The results revealed that only 27.3% of 940 health care providers agreed and strongly agreed with the issue of the adequacy of human resources, and 30.2% agreed with adequacy of other resources, the two lowest of all other issues. In contrast, among 2,464 clients, 86.9% agreed and strongly agreed on the issue of the adequacy of human resources. This was the lowest of other issues such as quality of service and satisfaction with the service of which at the level of 90%. Therefore, the human resources and other resources are critical issues to consider for transferring. However, this study only surveys the first 3 months of a major transfer in Thailand, so the transfer should be monitored and evaluated periodically.
