Abstract
D.Cur.
Like in many countries, Namibia is experiencing social and economic health care
problems related to care provision at state health facilities. The Namibian State has
acknowledged that it can no more afford to provide care for all the sick people alone,
especially at its health facilities. It is now calling upon the society to take up the
responsibility of caring for their sick people at home. Although this call is genuine and
necessary, one cannot help to always wonder about the expectations of stakeholders
involved in home care provision in rural Namibia.
The purpose of the study was to develop and describe a model for capacity building to
facilitate quality home care in rural Namibia. To achieve this the following specific
objectives were formulated: 1) to explore and describe the expectations of the
stakeholders involved in home care situation in rural Northern Namibia; 2) to assess the
status of available resources in relation to quality home care; 3) to analyse the concept
capacity as a management process and conceptualise the whole study into existing
theoretical frameworks to facilitate home care in rural Namibia and 4) to develop and
describe practical guidelines for the implementation of the model.
A qualitative case study design was used to carry out the study. Explorative, descriptive,
theory generative and inductive strategies were utilised. Face to face interviews were
conducted with thirty stakeholders in home care using an interview guide. Purposive and
Snowballing/networking sampling were used to identify the stakeholders involved with
home care. Observations were also made with regard to the status of the resources, its
availability and accessibility to the stakeholders.
From the empirical phase, various expectations were expressed related to resources,
namely, physical structures, knowledgeable human resources, financial and logistics,
information, safe water supply, transport and communication means, support systems
and mechanisms at home and community levels, food and nutrition. It was clear that
resources were lacking as well as the support systems for home care.