Maurice Sarigda was awarded the degree of Doctor in Sociology with distinction ” very honourable ” on Friday January 14, 2022 at Joseph KI-Zerbo University. For this reason, he presented the fruit of his doctoral research on the elimination of health care payments for certain socially vulnerable categories to a four-member jury on the theme of ” Contribution of direct care exemption to improving the technical and relational quality of curative care in basic health facilities in the Centre region (Ouagadougou), Burkina Faso “.
People’s access to health services remains one of the major challenges for health policies designed and implemented in African countries. The Bamako Initiative (IB), which aims to increase the use of healthcare services by making them geographically, financially and socially accessible, with the full participation of local communities, is part of this drive, explained the impetus. In his presentation, he pointed out that the fee-for-service principle is a barrier to the use of healthcare services.
According to the impetus, ” in Burkina Faso, the infant and child mortality rate remains high. The financial barrier is often cited as the cause of non-use of healthcare services, accentuating the risk of death in this segment of the population. Social policies to ease financial burdens, notably free healthcare for children under 5, have been designed and implemented since April 2016. It aims to reduce infant and child mortality. The application of this free-of-charge policy has led to the over-consumption of healthcare services by beneficiaries (77% increase between 2015 and 2018) “.
