[Medical emergencies in the Yalgado Ouedraogo national hospital of Ouagadougou: patients' profile and assessment of care practices].

The Emergency Department, the showcase of the hospital, must be functional at all times with sufficient resources for looking after the patients without delay. In the Medical Emergency Department of the Yalgado Ouedraogo national hospital of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), problems such as delays and difficulties to obtain medicine, give rise to conflicts thus causing the hospital to be a target for public criticism. The aim of this study is to establish the profile of the patients and to assess how they are taken care of. A cross-sectional survey was carried out for 21 consecutive days spread out over three months, from April 25 to June 25, 1997 and concerned all of the 551 patients consulting on those days. The self referral rate was 50.8%. Patients came mainly from the Kadiogo province (90.7%), with their own transport means (85.1%), more often at the beginning of the week (31 patients per day on average) than during week ends (21 patients per day on average, p<0.001). The age group was 15 to 93 years with a mean of 35.4 ( 14,2) years. Infectious diseases, particularly gastroenteritis (21.3%), malaria (12.1%), and pneumonia (10.2%) were the main diagnoses. The median waiting time was 8 min (from 0 to 3 h 59 min), the median therapeutic time was 56 min (from 5 min to 16 h 19 min). Patients were supplied with medicine in 14.5% of cases. Thus median medicine acquisition time was significantly reduced from 35 min to 21 min (p<0.001) when medicines were bought. Medicine acquisition time significantly contributes to increase the therapeutic delay (rs=0.31; p<0.001). The median therapeutic time was 56 min (5 min to 16 h 19 min). The diagnostic accuracy rate was 77.4%, and the satisfaction index 3.5%. Patients expenditure was 9,002 CFA francs on average, including 7,963 CFA francs for medicine. Thus access to medicine constitutes a major point of malfunction, increasing the caretaking time span as well as patients' expenditure. In addition to quickly and systematically supplying medicines to all patients, organizing the reception and providing comfortable waiting conditions must be considered in order to offer better care delivery services.