Impoverishment and patients' "willingness" and "ability" to pay for improving the quality of health care in Palestine: an assessment using the contingent valuation method.

This paper examines the impact of impoverishment on patients' preferences with respect to improving the quality of health care, by focusing on the sudden impoverishment experience that affected the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) since the beginning of the second Palestinian Uprising of September 2000. Two random samples of patients (352 and 353 individuals, respectively) were interviewed about their willingness to pay for improving a set of quality attributes in delivery of primary health care, prior and after the occurrence of this crisis situation, using a contingent valuation questionnaire. Impoverishment did not seem to affect the structure of patients' preferences vis-à-vis some essential quality attributes such as "doctor-patient relationship" and "drug availability". However, preferences toward "luxury" quality attributes, e.g., "geographical proximity" and "waiting time", suffered from both income-dependent and income-independent negative impoverishment effects. We conclude that impoverishment might not only affect individuals' availability of resources but also the ability of certain groups of patients, notably women, villagers and the elderly, to adequately express their preferences toward improving the quality of health care delivery. The issue of how willingness to pay results should be interpreted in the light of our study for policy implications was discussed. The study raises strong doubts about the current policy of introducing patients' cost recovery schemes for funding primary health care in the current crisis situation of the OPT.