Over 82 percent of health institutions assessed in a new government survey failed to meet standards, with surveyors noting that compliance has dropped significantly over the past four years.
The survey assessed adherence to the Ethiopian Health Institutions Standard, which is jointly enforced by the Ministry of Health, Institute of Ethiopian Standards, and Ethiopian Accreditation Service. It covered 2,701 institutions across regions, with over 2,000 of them being privately-owned health institutions. Twenty-one comprehensive hospitals and 42 general hospitals were assessed.
The survey found a significant fall in overall compliance, which officials say is partly due to a new assessment framework incorporating stricter, modernized criteria--evaluating clinical outcomes, digital health record integration (HIS), patient safety protocols, and continuous quality audits rather than focusing purely on basic physical infrastructure.
Still, the results are worrisome.
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Only 21 of 565 government-run primary health centers surveyed complied with standards in full, while nearly two-thirds were placed in the "red" category, meaning little to no compliance. While compliance fared better at comprehensive and general hospitals, the survey suggests serious gaps here as well.
Only 16 (76 percent) hospitals had cardiac, neurology, and gastroenterology services; while 18 hospitals offer otorhinolaryngology and oncology services; and 19 hospitals had renal and rehabilitation services.
Only two hospitals offer nuclear medicine service.
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Compliance across the private sector is equally concerning, though the survey found that private health institutions were three times more likely to comply with the standard than government-run health centers.
Still, no fewer than 369 of nearly 900 privately-owned primary clinics surveyed were also labeled red; so were 34 percent of 784 medium clinics.
The survey found discrepancies in compliance between dental specialty clinics (nearly 80 percent compliance) and medium dental clinics, more than two-thirds of which had significant gaps.
