Catastrophe. This is the way by the world’s largest medical publication describes how Brazil’s Government is destroying the public health system. The cientific magazine accuses the president Michel Temer of introduced one of the harshest set of austerity measures in modern history.”.
The Lancet – Brazil’s health catastrophe in the making
Katarzyna Doniec
Rafael Dall’Alba
Lawrence King
Published in 2018, July 20th.
Brazil’s political and economic crises are diverting attention from the resumption of a neoliberal model of health care by its government. Here we briefly summarise the health reforms and their likely long-term implications. The new policies can be seen from three perspectives: austerity, privatisation, and deregulation.
Firstly, the country’s Government introduced one of the harshest set of austerity measures in modern history. The constitutional amendment passed in December 2016, called PEC-55, freezes the federal budget, including health spending, at its 2016 level for 20 years. Furthermore, in 2017, for the first time in nearly 30 years, the government undershot the minimum health budget guaranteed by the Constitution by R$692 million (approximately US$210 million). Other health-related sectors, such as education and science, also face spending cuts: up to 45% cuts in scientific research and 15% in public universities.
Read the complete article in The Lancet