Financing Primary Health Care: Experiences in Pharmaceutical Cost Recovery

摘要

Substantial country and donor efforts in recent years have been directed toward the development and implementation of child survival, primary health care, and maternal health services. Concern is now being focussed on how to best ensure the sustainability and continued development of these efforts. One proposal, the Bamako Initiative, has stimulated considerable debate over the potential for community financing of primary health care/maternal and child health (PHC/MCH) costs. The paper considers a variety of pharmaceutical cost recovery experiences and provides detailed reviews of experiences in eight countries: Ghana, Haiti, Liberia, Mali, Nepal, Nigeria, Thailand and Zaire. Though the focus of the review is on pharmaceutical cost recovery, it should be viewed as only one of several options for financing primary health care.