A physician specialist in infectious diseases graduated by the State University of Campinas and post graded by the São Paulo University, the Minister of Health, Alexandre Padilha assumed the position at the beginning of Dilma’s administration, and He discloses that the budget of the Ministry of Health for 2011 is of R$ 77 billion.
Such resource is being destined to fund attendance at the whole Unified Health System including services such as the SAMU/192 and the following Programs: Brazilian Program of Popular Pharmacy, Health Strategies for the Family, Health for the Indigene people, dental assistance, offer of more than 560 medications free of charge in Health Posts and high-cost pharmacies, among others.
“We are aware the importance SUS have had along the past 22 years including millions of people who previously were absolutely unassisted in terms of health, and today, they have a wide attendance comprising the basic attention to the health, vaccination campaigns and even highly complex procedures, such as transplants”.
The last National Research by Sampling points that 86% of the SUS [Unified Health System] along the last 12 months were satisfied with the attendance they have been receiving.
The priority for the Ministry of Health and their agencies has been to reduce regional inequalities that historically wasted the North and Northeast regions in the country. The agreement “Mais Nordeste e Mais Amazônia Pela Cidadania” [More Northeast and More Amazon for the Citizenship] foresees the improvement in health services focusing the reduction of the child mortality among others commitments.
To cope with the challenge of improving the attendance in the public network, the Ministry of Health is creating a national indicator to assess the performance of the SUS in each region supported by health professionals, experts and the whole society, and from such diagnosis it will be defined feasible goals in different Brazilian regions, considering local specificities with states and cities. “We must to identify which is the SUS’ capability of resolution in each region, the extent the access to health is qualified, and the users’ level of satisfaction”, explained the Minister.
The improvement in administrating is a fundamental element to perform a deep reform in SUS. “Besides of indicating the performance, it is necessary to prepare its managers for such new scenery”, he exposed. The Ministry of Health has available an important tool for the permanent and continued education for the SUS’ health professionals. This is the UNASUS – SUS Open University formed by a network of Health universities and Secretaries sharing a collaborative collection of educational material offering courses accurate capacitating to each specialization.
The Ministry of Health is also implanting a special committee to elaborate a proposal for a plan of carriers inside SUS focusing professional providers of basic attention actuating in areas hard to be accessed and fixed, and this must assure the assembling of an effective board by means of civil service exam with adequate salaries and permanent improvement.
There is an effort to contract servers by means of civil service exams, to eliminate precarious contracts and to improve working conditions for the SUS professionals all over the country.
To re-structure 45 federal College hospitals in the whole Brazilian territory, the Ministry of Health released R$ 300 million. The funding for such re-structure is being shared between the areas of Health and Education in a mutual system that includes the MPOG – Ministry of Planning, Budget and Administration. There is a conjunct effort of such Ministries to create material and institutional conditions for the total performance of those units. With the Rehuf – National Program to Re-structure Federal College Hospitals launched on January, 2010, priorities have been set. Such initiative foresees actions to improve the physical structure, modernization of equipments, re-structure of the human resources and improvement of the administration. Considered a reference in highly complex attendance, examinations, consultations and surgeries, College hospitals offer appropriate structure to assist the population and to teach future health professionals.
Also, it was created a program to properly take care of the health of the Indigene population. In April, the Ministry of Health launched a package of measures focusing such population, and it can be detached the programs “Brasil Sorridente Indígena” [Indigene Brazil Smiling], “Rede Cegonha Indígena” [Indigene Stork Network], Prevention of the Cervix and Breast Cancer to the Indigene People, and Program of Digital Inclusion for District Counselors for the Health of the Indigene People. It was also announced the autonomy of the 34 DSEI – Special Sanitation Districts for the Indigene People, which are responsible by the management of health services rendered to the Indigene population. Such measure will allow to perform bids and emergence purchasing for feeding items, fuel and maintenance of the fleet and equipments and to speed the attendance according to local demands.