The role of government departmental leadership in health service delivery: case study the department of health and social development in the Ezo county

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to assess the role of Departmental Leadership on delivery of health service in Ezo County, Western Equatorial, South Sudan. To achieve this, specific study objectives were adopted. They included i) to establish the influence of communication in motivating team members to effectively deliver credible public health care services to the community in Ezo County, ii) to examine the contribution of delegating duties on the provision of reliable health services, iii) to find out the influence of team building on the execution of tasks in the department of health in Ezo County and iv) to assess the perceptions and views of service users on the usefulness and timely delivery of public health services by the County leadership. Literature review exposed several research gaps in previous literature related to the objectives above, namely conceptual, contextual, temporal, scope and approach gaps, among others. To fill these gaps, the study adopted a case study research design based on qualitative approach for data collection and analysis. Data was collected using interviews and was analysed by use of Consolidated Criterial Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ). The findings of the study were that leadership support and effectiveness was largely minimized which results into poor health service delivery owing to the fact that communication within the department is very poor, human resource practices like delegation is lacking and a number of development projects could not be implemented due to lack of teamwork. Specifically factors like lack of team work, lack of trainings and workshop, inability to conduct meetings for progressive service delivery and lack of political will to enhance efficiency and effectiveness towards the needs of the people were the major concerns. Generally the study came to a conclusion that the better the quality of leadership, the more efficient staff becomes thus enhancing provision of quality health service delivery. As result, it was recommended that all employees including top managers should be trained in effective communication. The government should make efforts to recruit and promote enough health workers and equip them with the capacity particularly critical professional skills for quality health service delivery.