Authors:
esraa Alsaedi; Meervat Altaie;
Abstract:
One of the most significant challenges government hospitals contend with is a lack of adequate building maintenance. Improper procedures of maintenance practice may adversely affect the building and services provided. This paper aims to assess the factors negatively affecting building maintenance practices in Iraq. The literature was reviewed to collect factors affecting maintenance. A well-structured questionnaire was distributed to hospital building maintenance experts to collect data. Seventy-six valid questionnaires were used in the data analysis stage. The Relative Importance Index (RII) was used to determine the importance of each factor based on the respondents� ratings. There were twelve top-ranked factors affecting hospital building maintenance practices: faulty design, lack of funding, inadequate training, misuse of building facilities, construction errors, lack of work experience, individual modifications carried out by the hospital staff, building age, shortage of maintenance staff, administrative corruption, low concern for future maintenance, and unavailability of skilled appointed maintenance personnel. Understanding the effect of these factors is essential for managers of maintenance departments to develop the reality of maintaining hospital buildings in Iraq by controlling them.
Keywords:
government hospital, maintenance, Iraq, building maintenance, maintenance practice.