Diagnosis of a public policy: an introduction to user fee exemptions for healthcare in the Sahel

During the last ten years, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have opted for selective user fee exemption policies, while remaining within the general framework of cost recovery. But they have each developed their own particular institutional mechanisms, different from those of their neighbour. This was the topic of a comparative research program combining both quantitative and qualitative surveys over a four-year period. This special issue presents papers setting exemption policies in the wider context of public policy and the day-to-day functioning of health systems (part 1); presenting overarching case studies (part 2); and reflecting on our methodological approach (part 3). User fee exemption policies were introduced in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger during the first decade of this century. They cover several sector-based measures ('free healthcare' in everyday language), and sometimes come on top of high levels of subsidies which enabled significant reductions in the cost of certain drugs and treatments. From the late 1980s, these three countries were - and still are - subject to a comprehensive system of cost recovery at the point of delivery (a policy introduced following the Bamako Initiative), or, to be more precise, a system of partial payment of drugs and services by the user. Only a small proportion of the costs are actually recovered as the amounts charged to the users do not take salaries, investments or recurrent costs, which are all paid by the state, into account, and represent only a small percentage of the overall health budget (an order of magnitude of five percent is often cited at state level [1,2]. Nevertheless, the sums recovered by health centres enabled them to buy drugs and cover certain local expenses. However, for public health reasons, cost recovery has always been subject to a variety of sector-based exceptions, determined by the nature of the disease or intervention involved. For example, mass immunization (National Immunization Days) and routine vaccinations as part of the Extended Programme of Immunization (EPI), treatment relating to tuberculosis, leprosy, noma and Guinea worm, and measures for the prevention of epidemics all remained free of charge for users. The Bamako Initiative also made provision for a system that waived payment for patients who were too poor to pay for their treatment, however this system has never really been implemented (with regard to Burkina Faso, cf. [3]; for other countries in the region, see [4]). This exclusion of the most vulnerable and the low health indicators in Africa, which are jeopardizing the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), explain the many criticisms of cost recovery that have mounted up within the NGOs, the research community and international organizations since the 1990s (cf. Ridde, this issue). This growing pressure for the abolition of the financial barriers to healthcare is clearly positioned within the progressive trend towards universal coverage. An international consensus has set itself the goal of ensuring that, by 2030, all populations, regardless of earnings, geographical location and gender, benefit from the coverage of 80% of basic health services, and 100% protection against the financial risks associated with direct payment [5]. This context explains why - over and above the three countries considered here and at around the same time - sector-based exemption policies were developed and implemented in a number of countries in Africa from the early years of this century [6].