MATERIALIZATION, RELEVANCE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE SUS: A
ANALYSIS FROM PRIMARY CARE

Name: ELIZABETH CARDOSO DE OLIVEIRA

Publication date: 28/07/2022
Advisor:

Name	Role
PAULO NAKATANI	Advisor *

Examining board:

Name	Role
ALINE FARDIN PANDOLFI	External Examiner *
ANA TARGINA RODRIGUES FERRAZ	Internal Examiner *
MARIA LUCIA TEIXEIRA GARCIA	Internal Examiner *
PAULO NAKATANI	Advisor *

Summary: The creation of the Unified Health System (SUS), one of the greatest social achievements of 1988, marked the transition to a slightly more civilized society. After almost 400 years of slavery and the reproduction of privileges, there was, for the first time, the formal guarantee of the universal right to health in Brazil. In its more than thirty years of existence, the SUS has made immense advances, but it also faces numerous challenges on a daily basis. Despite the limits, the SUS is a fundamental pillar of contemporary Brazilian society, which depends on its services, in all areas - either as a provider of health services for the population, or as a source of resources from the public fund for private agents. The performance of the SUS and the reorientation of the health care model, previously in force - promoted through the adoption of the Family Health Strategy - favored changes in the epidemiological picture of the population, making it more complex and moving Brazil away from a profile,
mostly, characterized by infectious and communicable diseases. Epidemiological complexity such that only the SUS itself is capable of
providing adequate answers, given that the private health sector is not able
– nor interested – to face it. The SUS resists, but under confrontations.
Repeated privatization processes and attempts, inside and outside the public
health system, are always surrounding the SUS. The most recent attempt
targets Primary Care. This is the Agency for the Development of Primary
Health Care (ADAPS), which threatens to be the door to the privatization of
the first level of care.

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