The relative influence of generic essential drugs and nursing staff supply shortages on primary healthcare access in Burkina Faso

The provision of quality primary health care relies upon the presence of skilled nurse attendants working in an environment where medical supplies are available when needed and in an adequate quantity and of assured quality. This retrospective cross-sectional study aims to describe the experience of health care consumers in 36 primary health care facilities in Burkina Faso. The data is extracted from the pilot project "Community Monitoring for Better Health and Education Services Delivery Project". The standard univariate probit specification of the primary care access equation suggests that reported barriers to primary care are statistically endogenous. When this endogeneity is accounted for, the resulting trivariate probit model shows that patients-reported shortages in nursing staff (NS) reduce by 85.5% the likelihood of primary care access, while reported generic essential drugs (GEDs) shortages paradoxically increase this likelihood by 60.3%. Suggesting that respondents primary care needs were more preventive (health counselling and family planning from nurses), than curative (GEDs consumption). Hence, national policy efforts to increase primary care access and thereby social welfare should consider these findings in setting up resource allocation priorities.