Accessibility to general hospitals in rural Bendel State, Nigeria

The concern is growing in Nigeria as in many other developing countries that the rural population, in spite of its size, is the most neglected in the distribution of social facilities. Even in the rural areas the spatial disparity in the location of the few available facilities aggravates the problem of some segments of the population. The case of accessibility to general hospitals in rural Bendel State of Nigeria is examined in this paper because general hospitals are crucial to the success of the free medical delivery system being attempted in the state. Using some surrogate measures of accessibility the study attempts a classification of all the rural Local Government Areas in the state according to their relative accessibility to general hospitals. Finally, the paper discusses some implications of the findings for social services planning in Nigeria and other developing countries.