Background: Patient satisfaction is very important in healthcare because a satisfied patient will be more cooperative with the medical team. Management of a chronic disease like HIV also needs as much cooperation from clients as possible because the treatment is for life. Waiting time has been reported by several studies as a major determinant of satisfaction in health facilities.

Background Social determinants of health (SDH) are a critical theme for health equality for Nigeria. Nigeria is one of the countries in the world which is far from achieving targets of 2030 SDG 3 due to this inequity in health. Methods This is a cross-sectional pilot survey designed to collect information about the SDH, strengths, challenges and perceived areas to be addressed among different cadres of healthcare workers at the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital (COOUTH) Awka in the South eastern part of Nigeria. This is a cross-sectional pilot survey among the different cadres of healthcare workers. Results The elements of SDH are vital for the continuing well-being of health workers because of their role in attending to the totality of their community. From our study, two elements of SDH (family and physical activity) had the greatest level of confidence (44% and 26% respectively), while the justice system (police and the legal issues) had the lowest areas of confidence (2% each), but the greatest strength of the community were found in education (70%) and family (58%). Conclusions Policies in general need to be implemented to address the economic instability in order to yield positive outcomes towards education, security of lives and property, food security and affordable healthcare and transportation. Reducing health inequities in Nigeria will depend on a focus addressing the social circumstances of individuals, families and communities using equity-based approaches on the broader structural environment. The role of formal and informal educational strategies will be beneficial in the highlighted social, economic and political factors from this study.