LEAKED DOCUMENT shows disturbing information on Brazil's Public Heath System

More than three months ago, a large scale public survey was done in the state of São Paulo with more than 350,000 people, with the goal to find out about the public opinion regarding the Public Health System, known in Brazil as SUS(Sistema Unico do Saude).

Here are the problems:

-The governor of the state of São Paulo, Mr José Serra, is one of the main candidates to this year's presidency election in Brazil;
-The results of the public survey are not very good and could undermine José Serra's campaign and cost him many votes;
-Because of the negative results in the public survey, it has been kept a secret from the public for more than three months.

That public survey has just been leaked to UOL Noticias, the largest Online News webportal in Brazil.

Here is what they were hiding from the public:

-Only 24% of pregnant women in labor received any sort of anesthesy; 42,8% received painkillers during labor; and 14% gave birth receiving nothing more than a warm bath to aliviate the pain;
-30% of those surveyed said they had to wait 6 months to receive high complexity procedures, like Quimotherapy, Hemodyalisis and Catheterism. Those procedures, when done in private institutions for patients who can afford them, are done in a matter of days;
-30% of those surveyed said that they had no access to vaccines. Ever. Which contradicts the public reports from the state´s Health Department, that says it has a full stock of vacciness in all public hospitals and other public health facilities;
-18,9% of parents said that their children weren't vaccinated after birth, which goes against São Paulo's Immunization Program;
-etc

UOL News talked to 6 specialists in public health assistance. Some asked not to be identified by name. All agreed that the public survey shows a grave flaw in the Public Health System in the state of Sao Paulo.

About the SUS(Sistema Unico de Saude):

The SUS was created in 1988, by the Federal Constitution of Brazil to guarantee the right to health assistance to every brazilian citizen.

In 1990, a law had passed establishing the main principals directing the SUS, which are:

Universality: Health is a constitutional right for all citizens;

Integrality: Citizens must have access to curative and preventive means;

Equality: Every citizen must have equal access to the public health system;

Participation of the Community: A social control of the SUS is to be done through federal conferences every four years, giving the population half of the seats in the conference to discuss the public health system;

Descentralization of the administration: Creates the individualization of the administration of the SUS in three different levels: Federal, State and Municipal;

LINK TO UOL NEWS(in portuguese)

As long as the systematic corruption is so deeply ingrained in the public conciousness and culture of Brazil the poor people there will always be treated like trash.

Its a shame too, because Brazil could be a paradise, with an incredible life quality. The corruption deeply satiated in everyone, from the poorest person, up to president Lula, makes it completely impossible for it to achieve this state however.

brazil is the best example of psychopaths leading everything

this is one of the countries with bright future and bright economy, but the leaders prefer to use policies of $ aids, instead of investing in education/health and information, so, that way, they can keep in power, stealing $ and the poor just accepts the money aid, since they kind of dont have an option ...

reply to post by Faiol


It really is a shame. Brazilian politics are probably one of the most corrupt in the world. Few attempts are made to fight corruption. There is a new law being passed, called "FICHA LIMPA", which translates to "CLEAN FILE". That law intends to prohibit politicians who have been found guilty of corruption to be cadidates in the future.

The law project started well, then came the lobbys to approve it in congress only after a few tweaks, and now they tweaked it and the law was approved, but they changed it so much that it now allows the corrupts to become candidates again. It's ricidulous. Why make the law in the first place?

As for Public Health, I have worked for 5 years selling softwares to the government and I worked directly with the treasury department of several city governments.

It's absurd the ammount of corruption. People know they are robbers, but they don't know HOW MUCH and HOW MANY.