According to the chairman of the council of municipal health secretaries, the combined value with states and municipalities is expected to be around R $ 600 million in the next three months
THE Ministry of Health should announce this Thursday 26, a millionaire contribution for States and Municipalities to increase the number of surgeries, examinations and consultations and, therefore, reduce the waiting list for procedures in the Unified Health System (SUS), an action that should be one of the flags of the first hundred days of management Lula.
According to Wilames Freire, chairman of the National Council of Municipal Health Secretaries (Conasems), the value agreed in meetings so far between the ministry and representatives of state and municipal health secretaries is a federal contribution of BRL 600 million in the next 90 days and another R$3 billion for the remainder of the four years.
The amount of the investment and other details will be defined in the ordinance that will establish the National Program of Reduction of Waits for Elective Surgery, Complementary Visits and Specialist Consultations, which will be presented and approved by the three governing bodies at the first meeting of the Tripartite Council Commission Intermanagers (CIT) of the SUS under the new ministerial management, scheduled for this Thursday morning.
“We are working with an ordinance for 90 days. The proposal presented is to have, at this first stage, something around R$ 600 million to work with for the states and municipalities. This is what has been agreed and what the ministry is expected to announce “After the first 100 days of government, we will work on a proposal for the four years. The idea is that we have R$3.5 billion to, in four years, execute and end the queue,” the president of Conasems told the Stage.
He specifies that, based on what was agreed between the Ministry, States and Municipalities, the ordinance will give local governments the freedom to use the value to increase the number of procedures performed in their network or to establish partnerships with the private sector or philanthropic institutions such as Santas Casas to increase the number of procedures offered.
“The ordinance gives the States freedom to discuss priorities together with the Municipalities. If the secretariat wants to give its consent to the private initiative, it is up to him to define it. The Ministry, together with Conass (Council of State Secretaries for Health) and Conasems, will allocate the financial resources and will give the national guidelines to be done by States and Municipalities”, says Freire.
He says one of the national guidelines discussed and expected to feature in the ordinance is paying up to three times the value of table SUS (money paid by the government to a private or philanthropic institution to perform a procedure) for certain surgeries. “The cataract operation will be the only price of the SUS table. For other operations you can pay one, two or three times the SUS table,” he said. The discrepancy of values in the SUS table is one of the main criticisms of industry managers.
The municipalities argue that part of the transferred value can be used not only for the direct cost of the procedures, but for the structuring of the health units that can carry them out. “Most of the elective interventions take place in the municipalities, especially in the capitals and in the medium-sized municipalities. We are discussing with the ministry so that, in this initial moment, we also have the resources to implement the services. We need to acquire inputs, recruit our workers, train the teams, prepare the operating rooms because many surgical centers are deactivated,” says Freire.
Conasems does not have an estimate of how many people are on the waiting list for elective procedures at SUS or how many procedures would need to be performed with the R$600 million contribution. “This will depend on each state’s installed capacity,” she says. As per Stage revealed in December, Conass estimates that, during the pandemic, about 13 million examinations and surgeries (inpatient and outpatient) were no longer performedwhich gives an indication of the extent of pent-up demand.
questioned by Stage regarding the details of the ordinance, the Minister of Health, Nísia Trindade Lima, said that they will be presented during the CIT meeting.
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Source: Terra
Ben Stock is a lifestyle journalist and author at Gossipify. He writes about topics such as health, wellness, travel, food and home decor. He provides practical advice and inspiration to improve well-being, keeps readers up to date with latest lifestyle news and trends, known for his engaging writing style, in-depth analysis and unique perspectives.
