Brasil
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BRAZIL IN NUMBERS1
- Life expectancy (both sexes, 2006): 72 years
- Gross National Product per capita (PPP in international $, 2006): 8700
- Per capita total expenditure on health (PPP in international $, 2005): 755
- Number of physicians (per 10 000 population, 2005): 12
BRAZIL’S HEALTH CARE REACHES OUT TO THE PEOPLE2
- 70% of population receives free health care from public system
- 27 000 family health teams are active in nearly all Brazil’s 5560 municipalities
- Each family health team serves up to about 10 000 people, teams include doctors, nurses, dentists and other health workers
- Community members provide feedback on health services
Dr Maria das Graças Vieira Esteves admits that at first she was not a believer. But after 11 years as a director of one of Brazil’s health clinics she has no doubts.
“Initially, I did not believe the Family Health Programme could be effective, but gradually I saw they were doing marvellous work and getting results,” she says.
Over the past two decades, Brazil has worked hard to put into practice the 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata and its goal of achieving health for all by means of a primary health care approach.
Brazil’s vision of a system providing ‘health for all’ emerged towards the end of the military dictatorship that started in 1964 and during the years of political opposition that was to a large extent framed in terms of access to health care.
HEALTH CARE IS A HUMAN RIGHT IN BRAZIL
This struggle culminated in the 1988 constitution, which enshrined health as a citizens’ right and which requires the state to provide universal and equal access to health services for all of the country’s 190 million people, regardless of their ability to pay.
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