Solomon Islands: Health Facilities Costing Study

The Solomon Islands’ Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS) commissioned this Health Facilities Costing Study (‘the study’) to better understand how resources are used to deliver health services. The MHMS oversees two main sources of recurrent funds in support of this system: annual appropriations from domestic government resources and budget support from its development partners, including via the Health Sector Support Program (HSSP). The MHMS recorded recurrent expenditures of SBD 403 million in 2013, including SBD 262 million from domestic resources and SBD 141 million from HSSP, which amounted to 17 percent of total government recurrent expenditure. The MHMS uses these funds to support facilities at all levels of the health system, the National Referral Hospital (NRH; unless NRH is specifically mentioned it is not included as part of general reference to ‚hospitals‘), provincial and church hospitals (referred to as hospitals in this report unless otherwise specified), Area Health Centres (AHC), Rural Health Clinics (RHC) and Nurse Aid Posts (NAP), and national programs. This study focuses on the facilities only. Although the MHMS manages an estimated 96 percent of total health expenditure, little is known about how resources are used by these facilities. The study was designed to estimate the recurrent costs (staffing, medical supplies, transport, utilities and maintenance) currently incurred by health facilities, taking into account funds from the MHMS, as well as from churches, private organisations and patients.