[Waiting time for hospital patients ready for discharge].

Background: Patients expect to be discharged as soon as assessments and necessary treatments are completed and good clinical practice requires hospitals to manage this. To stimulate a good patient flow between hospitals and primary care institutions, the state requires primary health care institutions to pay a daily fee if they do not receive patients within one week after they have been declared ready for discharge from somatic departments. Patients from geropsychiatric departments in Oslo were included in the payment system in the period 1993-2001.

Major and minor surgery output at district level in Kenya: review and issues in need of further research.

Major and minor surgery is a service of great importance both for the people in need and for health workers and managers trying to develop a comprehensive primary health care service. While in highly industrialized countries some 5000-9000 major operations are performed per 100,000 people per year, the rates in East Africa in the early 1990s were in the range of 70-500. In our study all surgical operations performed at hospitals and clinics in Meru district during 12 months in 1990-1991 were listed on record forms including age, sex and home address of patients, and type of operation.