Right to health: demand for food supplements in Rio de Janeiro – a case study

• Autor(a) principal: Ferreira, Aldo Pacheco
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Silva, Juliana Nobre dos Santos, Vianna, Marcos Besserman, Cotrim Junior, Dorival Fagundes, Wermelinger, Eduardo Dias
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Baiana de Saúde Pública (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://rbsp.sesab.ba.gov.br/index.php/rbsp/article/view/2769
• topic: Judicialização da Saúde; Direito à saúde; Suplementos Alimentares; Saúde pública; Direitos Humanos; Direito à saúde; Suplemento alimentar; Judicialización de la salud; Derecho a la salud; Suplementos dietéticos; Salud pública; Derechos humanos; Health’s judicialization; Right to health; Dietary supplements; Public health; Human rights

Since the incorporation of social rights in the 1988 Brazilian Constitution, an increase in the so-called judicialization of health was observed, which caused an imbalance regarding the accessibility and management of public health services. The emergence of the citizen’s conscience, by which the guarantee of a right is conjectured grows compared to the judgments handed down in the first instance, which again and again claim the positive payment by the State. Investigate legal actions that seek to guarantee access to public health, evaluating the substantial processes to provide a scenario on the judicialization of health regarding dietary supplements. This is a qualitative study that focus on documentary research, analysing legal proceedings for dietary supplements filed against the State Department of Health of Rio de Janeiro, issued from January 2014 to August 2017. In total, 1,322 lawsuits were filed. Judicial issues cannot be accepted as a deliberative baseline instrument in the management of medical care but accepted as a respectable component in the decision-making of managers in the access to dietary supplements by SUS. Thus, the Ministry of Health must work with regulatory agencies on the therapeutic role of dietary supplements to establish a limit between medicine and food and discuss with intersectional instances how far Brazilian Unified Health System should be the responsible for ensuring such food/foodstuffs for therapeutic purposes.