O ovo da serpente eclode na Caixa de Pandora

Abstract

he Health System agonizes in Brazil, but there is still hope. In 1999, more than five years ago, we wrote an article entitled "The snake's egg", with the purpose of alerting the Brazilian society in general to the risks of copying the North-American style, in respect to the establishment of the unjust 'industry of damage'. On that occasion, we drew attention to the avalanche of lawsuits that doctors as well as public and private hospitals would suffer, which would ruin the doctor-patient relationship and highlight the inefficacy of the constitutional right to guarantee the health of all citizens. Sadly, our prediction came true: chaos has been established and the snake's egg has hatched in Pandora's Box. According to the ranking published by the World Heath Organization, the quality of Brazilian health is in the 124th place. The amount that we spend annually to pay public health costs has no relationship to reality and this is totally shameful. According to statistics of Abramge/Fenaseg, 31 billion Reals are spent to take care of 35 million of insured people, while SUS (the Government Healthcare Plan) spends almost the same quantity to assure the right to health to more than 145 million of Brazilians. It is easy to conclude that the matter is not related to this or that Government or even to specific political parties, the question is much deeper. For decades we have not complied with the constitutional law of protecting the health of the Brazilian population and, by total lack of ethics, we pretend that the 124th place is ours. Within this universe, other questions become complex and it is difficult to establish a standard as the recent case of wage readjustment of the healthcare plans shows. The government tries to regulate the market intervening in the economic area, displeasing Greeks and Trojans, only because of the lack of ethical