Accessing Health Care and Quality of Health Care in Hill Rural Areas of Burundi

Fee exemptions do not overcome barriers to health accessibilities. Geographic and financial accessibility, luck of equity, poor quality of services and inefficiency, are the main barriers to health accessibilities in Burundi. Rural populations have to work longer distances to reach a health center and/or a pharmacy. And though the quality of diagnostic and medical prescription is poor in general, rural populations still appreciate this quality on basis of the final end of the patient. The curative consultation is good when the patient is completely healed otherwise its quality is bad. And a medical prescription is of good quality when local pharmacists can easily read it. Local government pharmacies are challenged with shortages of drugs while private pharmacies have enough and on regular basis. Rural populations think that the regular availability of drugs in local pharmacies and the recurrent stocks-outs of drugs in government pharmacies are closely linked. The paper evaluates the effects of user fees exemption on health care accessibility and on quality of health care in hill rural areas. The paper argues that health care services are hardly accessible to rural households and are of poor quality.