A relação entre os setores público e privado de saúde na disponibilização dos leitos de UTI Covid-19 para o enfrentamento da pandemia: o lucro acima da vida

Abstract

This work aims to analyze the relationship between the public and private health sectors in the provision of ICU beds to combat Covid-19 in Brazil, in the context of a pandemic, capital crisis and deepening neoliberalism. To this end, a bibliographical research was developed to support the understanding of the repercussions of the capital crisis on Brazilian health policy, on the neoliberal aegis of cuts in public policy financing, restriction of rights, private appropriation of public funds, precariousness, privatization and focusing public policies, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The study also highlighted during the pandemic the Federal Government's non-science-based actions, led by a denialist head of state, whose only and unrestricted concern was the defense of private sector profits, leading to thousands of deaths that could have been avoided. Through documentary research in the Ministry of Health's databases, we sought to observe aspects of inverted complementarity in the country, as well as how the supply of ICU beds was consolidated for exclusive care for patients with Covid-19 in the territory. Brazilian. The struggle surrounding the unification of the queue for access to intensive care beds, led by social movements in defense of the lives of Brazilians who did not have access to the private health sector, stood out. The study developed here pointed out that the process of reversing the complementarity of the private sector to the public, through the purchase of hospital and outpatient services, followed the trend of the years prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, showing above 50% in both first years of the health crisis. In general terms, although, according to the analysis parameters of the research developed here, it was observed that at the beginning of the pandemic the supply of Covid-19 ICU beds occurred predominantly within the private sector, this scenario has changed over the course of the following year with a significant increase in SUS's own beds. It was also noted that various forms of subsidies were granted to the private health sector, with large volumes of public resources allocated to this sector, to the detriment of strengthening the public sector. However, when carrying out a per capita comparative analysis, for every 10 thousand inhabitants, between SUS and Non-SUS exclusive Covid-19 ICU beds, a scenario of unequal bed ratio was identified, in which the greater availability of therapy units Intensive care was unquestionably in the Non-SUS scope, that is, it was concentrated in the private sector. The “Equal lives and beds for all” campaign was not considered by federal authorities and the greatest chance of having access to Covid-19 ICU beds was concentrated in the 25% who had health insurance, assuming that their lives are worth more than others. It is concluded that, even in a period of profound health and humanitarian crisis, in a country that has the largest public system in the world, profit was above life.