Cost analysis of psychiatric health care at the University Hospital of Fann (Senegal)

: In the current senegalese context, marked by a political will of autonomisation of health services, is proves very important to study the costs of the services provided in hospitals. Our study, which consists in a retrospective analysis of accounting archives of the psychiatric department of Fann Hospital during the year 1998, had the following objectives: determine the costs related to the functioning of the service of psychiatry, according to the source of financing, determine the average cost of the main services provided by the psychiatric department, analyze the recovery of the cost of these services. The operating costs of the psychiatric department came to 86.824.477 FCFA in 1998. 88% of the total amount were brought by the State and the remaining 12% came from community participation. The average cost of hospitalization in Clinique Moussa Diop was 91.398 F CFA. For the former patients the visit cost 6.664 F CFA; for the outpatients the price was 12,886 F CFA. The average cost of a child psychiatric visit was 8.140 F CFA and 28 days of hospitalization in the same service cost 354.825 F CFA. The share supported by the community participation is in general largely covered by the current fees in spite of the high cost of these services.