The Access to Medicines: The Weak Link of the Exemption of Healthcare Payment Policy for the Elderly in Senegal

The institutionalization of the Plan Sesame in Senegal or free access to healthcare for the elderly translates a real political will of decision-makers to answer the sanitary concerns of this category of vulnerable population. The objective of this study is to estimate the effectiveness of the free access to the Plan Sesame and to collect the appreciations of the recipients of the Plan. This study is based on a data connection of qualitative data in 2010 with the elderly and decision-makers and on a transverse quantitative and qualitative study in 2011 made to the only geriatric hospital of the country. The elderly are particularly affected by chronic pathologies and most drugs of which they need are not dealt by the Plan. They must buy them in private pharmacies. The not provision of these drugs known as of speciality favors the recourse to the illicit market of drugs with traditional medicine and even with the therapeutic abandonment. Moreover it worsened the social inequalities of health within the recipients of this Plan.