Site Suitability Evaluation for New Health Facilities Using Geospatial Technologies in Hadiya Zone, Ethiopia

Healthcare facilities in developing countries are mostly located in urban and semi-urban areas. Ethiopia's health development has been significant, but the country still faces high morbidity and mortality rates, leading to a relatively poor health status. The study aimed to evaluate the accessibility of healthcare facilities in the Hadiya Zone using geospatial technologies. The road network, existing healthcare center, population data, slope, and land use land cover factors were used from different sources. The health services suitability evaluation was conducted by using geospatial techniques (Arc GIS 10.8 and Erdas Imagine 2014 software and analytic hierarchy process approach). The findings show that the relative accessibility reveals that from 0.0028 to 0.0154 values indicated very low access to health services. 0.79% of the study area was found as permanently unsuitable, while 41.68% of the study area was highly suitable and had potential for a new Healthcare facility site. The result reveals that spatial discrepancy exists in the case of access to healthcare facilities and the location of existing healthcare is largely clustered around the town's area. While there is poor planning of healthcare center distribution, the concerned body should identify the potential sites and allocation of new healthcare to reduce the spatial disparity of the health services.