By Luciano Bottini Filho
Despite the value of a constitutionally enshrined right to health, such a guarantee, on its own, does not ensure patient rights or a nuanced understanding of patient-centered care.
This article will consider the case study of Brazil as an example. Despite Brazil’s recognition of the right to health, this constitutional protection does not set sufficient standards to guide judicial decision-making around patient care.
By Octávio Luiz Motta Ferraz
When my first piece in this series was published on May 12th, Brazil counted 11,000 deaths caused by COVID-19. A new health secretary had just been appointed to replace Dr. Luiz Henrique Mandetta, who was sacked for disagreeing with President Jair Bolsonaro’s views that the pandemic (which he infamously called a “little flu”) was a conspiracy of the media and that public health measures should be immediately lifted to avoid damage to the economy.
Fast forward to September 10th and the situation, predictably, has gotten significantly worse. Brazil now counts 128,539 deaths, the second highest number in absolute terms (after the U.S., where the death toll is 190,872), and the sixth in per capita terms, with just over 60 deaths per 100,000 population. When Brazil reached the 100,000 deaths mark in early August, the president thought it more appropriate to use his Twitter account to celebrate his football team’s win at the local tournament than to make any statement on the health crisis.
By Octávio Luiz Motta Ferraz
There has been no doubt fierce disagreement across the world’s democracies on how to fight the pandemic, i.e.: on how to protect public health while respecting civil liberties; on how to minimize the damage to jobs and businesses; on how strictly to enforce public health measures. Yet nowhere has a democratic country witnessed such frontal and public quarrel within its own government as in Brazil.
Not even in the U.S. have things gone that far in the delicate relationship between Trump and Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). No other country seems to have had as many challenges in the courts related to the response to the crisis, either.