Background: Health is a basic human right necessary for the exercise of other human rights. Every human being is, therefore, entitled to the highest possible standard of health necessary to living a life of dignity. Establishment of patients' Charter is a step towards protecting the rights and responsibilities of patients, but violation of patients' rights is common in healthcare institutions, especially in the developing world. This study which was conducted between May 2013 and May 2014, assessed the operationalization of Ghana's Patients Charter in a peri-urban public hospital. Methods: Qualitative data collection methods were used to collect data from 25 healthcare workers and patients who were purposively selected. The interview data were analyzed manually, using the principles of systematic text condensation.
Results:The findings indicate that the healthcare staff of the Polyclinic are aware of the existence of the patients' Charter and also know some of its contents. Patients have no knowledge of the existence or the contents of the Charter. Availability of the Charter, community sensitization, monitoring and orientation of staff are factors that promote the operationalization of the Charter, while institutional implementation procedures such as lack of complaint procedures and low knowledge among patients militate against operationalization of the Charter. Conclusion: Public health facilities should ensure that their patients are well-informed about their rights and responsibilities to facilitate effective implementation of the Charter. Also, patients' rights and responsibilities can be dramatized and broadcasted on television and radio in major Ghanaian languages to enhance awareness of Ghanaians on the Charter.
The interaction between organizational superiors and their subordinates has a practical implication on the entire organizational life cycle in terms of ethical conduct. This study explores how ethics among public leadership could trickle down on the conduct of public employees by using two empirical cases from developing African countries context. Using the attraction-selection-attrition and social learning models, the study assesses how superiors influence street level bureaucrats' interaction with clients or customers. Drawing from existing cases and other secondary data, we propose a leadership-ethical diffusion model that argues that subordinates' perception and experience of superiors' behavior tend to create a kind of organizational 'ethical groupthink', which spans the rank and file of the organization.
This paper therefore seeks to identify and analyse the factors that may explain the reported mixed results in relation to the impact of performance contract on the performance of public enterprise. The study specifically seeks to identify and analyse the factors that may explain the mixed results in the implementation of PC by public enterprises in Ghana. To achieve the above objective, the study adopted multiple case study strategy. Specifically, four public enterprises representing four cases were randomly sampled based on the performance assessment categorisation by the State Enterprises Commission (SEC). The findings of the study reveals that the content, targets, and objectives in the performance contracts are always specific, clear and measurable. There are however variations in how each of the case formulate performance targets and objectives in the contracts. SOEs in the excellent and above average categories have separate department exclusively in charge of corporate planning and that explains the variations in performance targets and objectives on yearly basis compared to those in categories C and D which show minimal changes with incremental modification to the previous targets objectives. Similarly, the study shows that SOEs in categories and A and B have clearly designed structures and systems for the implementation PC. Moreover, they were found to combine both top-down and bottom up approaches in their PC processes. Although the findings show that all SOEs face similar political inferences, financial and human resources have been identified from the study as vital in contributing to the performance of SOEs in the implementation of performance contact. On the basis of the above findings, this paper recommends among other things, the need for examine the institutional arrangements for formulating and implementing the content of performance contact within SOEs. Furthermore, the approach adopted by SOE A; trainees becoming trainers must be extended to other SOEs to build competent and qualified human resource base for the SOE sector.
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