CHAPTER ONE
1.2 Background of the Study
A policy is considered the general guideline for decision making. Kalejaye, (1998) defines policy as the objectives, the mode of thought and the body of principle underlying the activities of an organization Business policy is a guide and roadmap to create awareness and direction to the management of any organization. It publicizes the rights and obligations of different rung of the ladder- horizontal and vertical-of the different capital human resource engagement, finance utilization etc. It ensures that organizations deliver better end product within a framework. It encourages, promotes and improves performance attainment in an organization. Policy provides the bedrock for vision and mission statement of the business organization along the corporate objectives and goal. Policy enables the business to be assessed and given an image by the way they carry out their responsibility along with their relationship with their clients/customers. It is the ‘barometer’ of playing by the rule and gives purpose to the strategy thrust of the organization. Business Policy defines the scope or spheres within which decisions can be taken by the subordinates in an organization (Wikipedia, 2012). It permits the lower level management to deal with the problems and issues without consulting top level management every time for decisions. It is the study of the roles and responsibilities of top level management, the significant issues affecting organizational success and the decisions affecting organization in long-run.
Tracing the history of business policy, Kazmi (2006) states that it can be traced back to 1911, when the Harvard Business School introduced an integrative course in management in view of providing general management capability. This course was based on case studies which had been in use at the School for instructional purposes since 1908 (Christensen, et. al., 1982 cited in Kazmi, 2006). However, the real impetus for introducing business policy in the curriculum of business schools (as management institutes or departments are known in the United States) came with the publication of two reports in 1959. In 1969, the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business), a regulatory body for business schools, made the course of business policy a mandatory requirement for the purpose of recognition. In the last two decades, business policy has become an integral part of management education curriculum. The practice of including business policy in the management curriculum has spread from the United States to other parts of the world. The contents of the course, teaching methodology and so on vary from institution to institution. But basically, business policy is considered a capstone integrative course offered to students who have already been through a set of core functional area courses. The term “business policy” has been used traditionally though new titles such as strategic management, corporate strategy and policy and so on are now used extensively for the course. Business policy in term of hospital management provides the guideline for deploying resources and mobilizing for the efficient provision of effective health service which involves planning, organizing, controlling, directing and leading (Olumide 1997)
Open system is a system that regularly exchanges feedback with its external environment. Open systems are systems, of course, so inputs, processes, outputs, goals, assessment and evaluation, and learning are all important. Aspects that are critically important to open systems include the boundaries and external environment. Healthy open systems continuously exchange feedback with their environments, analyze that feedback, adjust internal systems as needed to achieve the system’s goals, and then transmit necessary information back out to the environment. Hospital management open business policy provides guideline that governs the hospitals interaction with its environment. A hospital cannot operate independently without the presence of its suppliers, political cum cultural, competitors, patients and religions environment. Some of the subsystems within the hospital are the Nursing department, Laboratory department, pharmaceutics department, emergency department etc need to be highly controlled and predicted, possessing a considerable degree of self-regulation. A true open system needs to be able to cope with controllable and unexpected inputs and deal with these in predictable and contingent way (Katz 2004). (www.managementhelp.org/orgs).
Directory of Hospitals in Nigeria, 1988, states that a hospital is an institution which is operated for the medical, surgical and/or obstetrical care of in-patients and which is treated as a hospital by the Central/state/government/local body/private and licensed by the appropriate authority. Steadman’s Medical Dictionary defined hospital as an institution for the care, cure and treatment of the sick and wounded, for the study of diseases, training of doctors and nurses. Open business policy provides guideline that governs the hospitals interaction with its environment.
The product of a hospital is service to people provided by its personnel with a variety of skills. The nature of the demand for hospital services is also distinctive to the hospital-as admission to the hospital for services is rarely voluntary. The decision is made for the patient that is ill and requires services which cannot be provided at home. The patient leaves home, family, friends, his work-place and his way of life for a new environment i.e. the hospital. In this new environment, he becomes one of the many. In his home, he has a definite role. In the hospital, his role is similar to thirty or fourty others in the ward or unit in which he is a patient. If he is a patient in a multiple-bed unit and confined to bed, he is housed with strangers and carries out several intimate functions in the presence of these strangers. He is subjected to a new set of values and a new way of life. In his environment, he meets many new people, and he is expected to relate and communicate with them. On occasions, patients encounter more than thirty different hospital personnel in the room in one day, each performing different functions. A hospital deals daily with the life, suffering, recovery and death of human beings. For the direction and running of such an institution, its administrative personnel need a particular combination of knowledge, understanding, traits, abilities and skills. www.nou.edu.ng/pdf/pdf2/mpa%207)
Nigeria has made progress in the last two decades in reducing maternal deaths, but the number of women who die in pregnancy or from complications associated with child-birth remains appallingly high. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and, despite being one of its wealthiest, continues to experience high rates of maternal deaths. The country has the 10th-highest maternal mortality ratio (MMR) in the world with 630 women dying per 100,000 births a higher proportion than in Afghanistan or Haiti, and only slightly lower than in Liberia or Sudan. An estimated 40,000 Nigerian women die in pregnancy or childbirth each year, and another 1 million to 1.6 million suffer from serious disabilities from pregnancy- and birth-related causes annually. Nigerian women have an average total of 5.7 births in their life, with each pregnancy exposing them to the risk of maternal complications. Over her lifetime, a Nigerian woman’s risk of dying from pregnancy or childbirth is 1 in 29, compared to the sub-Saharan average of 1 in 39 and the global average of 1 in180. In developed regions of the world, a woman’s risk of maternal death is 1 in 3,800.
This unhealthy situation of the public health sector triggers the mission hospital to bring hope to the sick and unhealthy people. The Catholic Sacred Heart Hospital in Abeokuta was the first standard hospital established in Nigeria in 1895. The Catholic Health Services is the single largest provider of health care after the government, offering about 40% of health care in the Country. Their humanitarian, universally-accessible health care services reach to all Nigerians, especially citizens at the margins of society the poor, disadvantaged, persons with disabilities, the aged, the abandoned and those with stigma conditions, lepers, HIV/AIDS and teenage pregnant girls, etc. Accordingly, there are compelling grounds for constructive engagement with them to assure universal health coverage for all Nigerians.
| Project details | Contents |
|---|---|
| Number of Pages | 154 pages |
| Chapter one | Introduction |
| Chapter two | Literature review |
| Chapter three | methodology |
| Chapter four | Data analysis |
| Chapter five | Summary,discussion & recommendations |
| Reference | Reference |
| Questionnaire | Questionnaire |
| Appendix | Appendix |
| Chapter summary | 1 to 5 chapters |
| Available document | PDF and MS-word format |
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