AN APPRAISAL OF BUILDING MAINTENANCE PRACTICE OF PUBLIC HOSPITAL IN NIGERIA

AN APPRAISAL OF BUILDING MAINTENANCE PRACTICE OF PUBLIC HOSPITAL IN NIGERIA

(A CASE ON FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTRE, BIDA)

ABSTRACT

 The study appraised the state of building maintenance practice of Federal Medical Centre Bida and in the process identified the significant difference(s) in the factors affecting building maintenance practice between the maintenance staff related factor and users factor within the study area. In achieving the objective, the study adopted non probability research technique using questionnaire as data instrument. A total of 41 questionnaires comprising 14 for the maintenance staff; 27 for the users of Federal Medical Centre Bida were collected and use for the study. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics. The findings of the study revealed that state of maintenance of Federal Medical Centre Bida buildings/services are found to be above average in performance. The hypothesis revealed that there is significant difference in the factors affecting building maintenance practice between the maintenance staff related factor and users’ factor.  Base on the results, the study recommends that a viable preventive and planned maintenance schedules that covers all major components /services should be prepared, followed up after installation for proper functioning of the maintenance practice in the hospital should not be exceeded, Political factors and corruption should be properly checked on its effect on maintenance practice, Inadequacy of maintenance staff and training for maintenance staff should be strictly treated in the unit because this exposes the maintenance practice of this hospital to be inactive and render inexistence in the maintenance department. So, provision of technical expertise maintenance staffs should be engage, the method of maintenance practice by the maintenance department should be formulated in such a way that out sourcing and in house crew system should be in a ratio of 40: 60 since the staffs that are technically experience were very scares in the department to improve the maintenance practice work and the level of motivation should be improved or well motivated in order to deliver their best during the maintenance work execution.

 CHAPTER ONE

1.0     INTRODUCTION

1.1       BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

            With time, all structure deteriorates toward a state of unserviceability and disintegrates. Maintenance is mainly to preserve buildings in their original functional, structural and aesthetic states so that they continue to remain as such and retain their assetworth over a long period of existence. Maintenance is an art and means of controlling the rate at which they do so (Smith, 2003).”Government owned hospitals are threatened with unique challenges that terrify their existence. This deficiency might also be found to begin from the institution’s inherent government structure which promotes disorganizations and control through the bother to operational efficiency in maintenance practice.

            “Leong (2009), make it known that housing is a most important factor impacting on the health, safety, socio-economic and political life of the occupants. In fact it impacts all aspect of human endeavour. Thus, the state of housing and its environment is an indicator of the level of maintenance development, condition on buildings and state of the community.”

Recent studies have shown that most public hospital facilities are as old as the hospital and even older than many workers working in the hospital.“For example, Onifade (2003), installed health facilities in Nigeria are as old as the hospital date of establishment or themselves, Federal Medical Centre might be of no exclusion.”Some of the medical equipment’s in public hospitals in Nigeria are not put in to service and need complete replacement.

            “Shoket (2003), state that, performance of hospital buildings and their components depends on to a greatmeasure on constant and planned penodical maintenance. In history, in both public and private sectors hospital, maintenance is seen as an unnecessary task which is supposed as adding little to the quality of the working environment and expending scare resources which would be better utilized (Higher Education Backlog Maintenance Review, 1998).”

            “There are things to be done and put in place at the design stage to reduce the amount and rate of subsequent maintenance work, all building element depreciate in their strength and stability at a greater or less rate depending on method of construction, materials, age, environmental conditions, usage of building and methods of design and management of the building (Faremi and Adenuga, 2012). The character and structure of a public hospital is established that they lack the potency and competence to compete in a promotemotivated economy in the country or in each state (Iyagba, 2005).”

            “In Nigeria, as revealed by Iyagba and Adenuga (2005), public buildings are in poor terrible conditions of structural and decorative bad shape. In spite of millions of Naira spent to construct all these buildings, they are left as soon as commissioned to face early but steady and repair deterioration, decay and dilapidation.”There is need to appraise the existence of maintenance in public hospital building and services in order to improve their standard if needed for effective health care functioning and standard.

            So many questions have been asked before, how many times have peopled not postponed planned and programmed maintenance? “In respect to Bnaful (2004), the financial penalty of neglecting maintenance is often not seen in terms of reduce asset life and early replacement but also in cased operating cost and waste of related and natural and financial resources.”Maintenance of an hospital buildings is one of the difficult subjects in the field of facilities management.”For example Shohet (2005), concluded that contributing to this is the complex nature of hospital buildings mechanical, electrical system and inadequate maintenance budget.”

            “Nous Hospital Consultants (2002), regarded an hospital as not a mere building, but a composite social institution, composed of many groups in place of a wide variety of interests and diverse needs that utilise the services of different medical, paramedical and support personnel to render all needed health care to the patients in its custody.” It employs a wide variety of modern technologies and engineering services to support the process of healthcare using various biological, pharmaceutical, chemical and death situations during the process of rendering healthcare moreover, supporting the evaluation of the user’s needs in order to attain better condition for them, Barrett (1995), suggested that using a post occupancy evaluation as a managerial aid is better for use.”

            Since maintenance prime aim is to protect buildings in their initial functional, structural and aesthetic states so that they continue to remain as such and retain their investment value over a long period of existence, it is therefore necessitated by deterioration of the materials and components of building(s) and its environment. It is the works undertaken in order to keep or restore every part of the building(s), its contents and its environment in an acceptable standard or condition.“This includes but not limited to the carrying out regular repairs of works and the replacement of items in buildings and its environment that are in deplorable conditions (Jolaoso et al, 2012).”

            Therefore, the principal preposition of this study is to investigate the state of maintenance practice of Federal Medical Centre, Bida.

1.2       STATEMENT OF PROBLEM 

         “Most of the hospital buildings are in terrible conditions of structural and decorative bad shape andmany public hospital structures are often inadequately maintained and roofs, walls, foundation and other building elements and facilities frequently show evidence of lack of maintenance and repair. Series of research have been carried out on factors responsible for the poor maintenance management practice of public, private hospitals, housing estatesbut only littleinteresthas been given to the appraisal of building maintenance practices to be adopted in the implementation of maintenance programmes for hospital buildings. Based on research, absence of maintenance by the instituting and occupants of these facilities often leads to reduction in the lifespan of these buildings (Melvin, 1992); there is therefore a need to establish measures, factors and evaluate the strategies for building maintenance practice of hospital buildings using appropriate maintenance analysis.

1.3       RESEARCH QUESTION

1. What is the physical state of Federal Medical Centre buildings in Bida?
2. What is the correlation between the maintenance practice and the maintenance staff, users of the hospital building?
3. Has any maintenance work been carried out in this hospital?
4. Is there any usage of maintenance plan/manual in this hospital?
5. How often has maintenance work been carried out?
6. What are the types of maintenance activities been adopted in this hospital?
7. What are the factors affecting maintenance practice?

 1.4       AIM AND OBJECTIVES

        “The major aim for the purpose of this study is to investigate the state of maintenance management of Federal Medical Centre buildings in Bida.

          The objectives for the purpose of this study are;

1. To examine the physical functional condition of hospital buildings.
2. To examine the maintenance practices of the hospital.
3. To suggest measures for an effective building maintenance practice of the hospital buildings.”

1.5       HYPOTHESIS

H₀: There is no significant difference in the perception of maintenance staff and users as to the factor affecting maintenance practice of Federal Medical Centre Bida.

H₁: There is significant difference in the perception of maintenance staff and users as to the factor affecting maintenance practice of Federal Medical Centre Bida.

1.6       SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

“Due to numbers of public hospitals in Nigeria, this project proposal will cover only the Federal Medical Centre Bida in Niger state, Nigeria.It will examine the maintenance of all the public hospital sections and quarters of Federal Medical Centre Bida, Niger state.”

1.7       SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

         “With this approach to be use in this study, the hospital building maintenance managers and maintenance staff will be able to have a better understanding of the building maintenance problem and formulate policies to guide their operation from strategy to performance evaluation. This study will also help in checkmating how the maintenance process by planning, scheduling, execution, analysing and improvement on how treat the maintenance practice problem and weaknesses in the hospital buildings.”

        “Leong (2009), further revealed that housing is a major factor impacting on the health, safety, socio-economic and political life of the occupants. The orientation for the users is not left behind for this study in enlightening their level of maintenance practice on their health, safety, socio-economic life. Nevertheless this study will also create awareness on the need for effective maintenance management with our public hospital environment.”

1.8       JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY

            This study will give an appraisal on building maintenance practice in public hospitals in Nigeria. It is important to note that despite the trend of maintenance in or public hospitals, most of the users and some maintenance manager do not understand the ways and plan to practice the maintenance management. Under normal circumstances, after the construction of a building, maintenance management practice follows because it’s the number two factors to a constructed building.

         It’s thus leaving me the searcher for the possible reasons behind the maintenance practice not performing as expected. This research will direct a ways of improving the use better maintenance practice for impacting our public hospitals and make its element contribution to the other organization maintenance structure.

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