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Oral Presentation - 127
UPTAKE OF PAEDIATRIC SURGICAL INTERVENTIONS IN THE FACE OF CATASTROPHIC HEALTHCARE EXPENDITURE AND DECLINING GLOBAL ECONOMY
Lukman ABDUR-RAHMAN 1, LAWAL ABDULWAHAB 2, Nurudeen Abdulraheem 3, Abdulrasheed Nasir 3, Adesoji Ademuyiwa 4, Kazeem Adegboye 5
1 Division of Paediatric Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Ilorin and University of Ilorin Teaching Hopsital, Nigeria
2 UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN TEACHING HOSPITAL, ILORIN, NIGERIA
3 University of Ilorin, Nigeria
4 Paediatric Surgery Unit, College of Medicine, University of Lagos and Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Lagos, Nigeria
5 Department of Anaesthesia, University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, Nigeria
PURPOSE
This study aims to determine factors that contributed to the delay in surgical intervention in children, to explore available source of health funding available to paediatric surgical patients and also to estimate and evaluate the impact of catastrophic health expenditure on the household.
METHOD
A descriptive cross-sectional study using a structured questionnaire was conducted. This involved interview of parents who presented their children at a free surgical outreach programme over a one-week period in September, 2024. Data was input into Excel spread sheet and analysed using SPSS version 23. Multinomial logistic regression model was used to determine relationship between specific household and healthcare related factors on CHE.
RESULTS
A total of 151 (89.9%) respondents/parents from 168 patients were recruited. The majority of the patients (36.4%) were aged 2-5 years, with a mean age of 6.63 ±3.95 years. Herniotomy remained the highest surgical procedure performed in 149 (92.0%) cases, with delay in presentation in 72.5% from several reasons, but mainly due to financial constraint and experience of catastrophic healthcare expenditure as majority (81.6%) would have financed their children's surgery through out-of-pocket payments. The prevalence of catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) at 10% of Total Annual Household Income (TAHI) was 60.3%. About 54.3% of respondents would have spent more than 40% of their total household income after food expenditure on healthcare. More than 90％ of the children were undernourished, as evidenced by the shortfalls in expected weight for age and anthropomorphic parameters.
CONCLUSION
This study showed a significant financial burden with potential CHE experienced by parents that caused the delay in children's surgical intervention. This is a call to the Government and relevant stakeholders to develop policies to ensure children as secondary payers have their right to surgical health protected and the first 3 goals of sustainable development achieved.