Satisfaction with and reasons for choosing faith-inspired health care provision in Ghana

This paper relies on household survey data as well as qualitative fieldwork to answer two questions about the services provided by faith-inspired health care providers in Ghana: how satisfied are patients with the services received?; and why are patients choosing faith-inspired providers for care? The quantitative survey data suggests that the level of satisfaction with the services provided by faith-inspired facilities is similar to that for public facilities, but lower than for private non-religious facilities. The qualitative data suggests that the reasons that lead patients to choose faith-inspired providers are not related to religion per se, but rather to the quality of the services provided, including (but not only) through the values of dignity and respect for patients that these facilities exhibit. Indirectly this suggests that the satisfaction with and quality of services provided by faith-inspired providers may be higher than suggested by survey data. At the same time, patients mention some areas for improvement including in terms of availability of medicines and equipment