Dados do Trabalho

Título

ACCESS POLICIES FOR ONCOLOGICAL HEALTH SERVICES IN BRAZIL: AN ECOLOGICAL STUDY

Introdução

Cancer is a group of diseases of multifactorial origin with increasing incidence and mortality. The Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) subsidizes most oncological treatments, but the supply and access to health services in Brazil is still limited and has high discrepancies in the availability of highly complex oncological services due to socioeconomic differences and vulnerabilities existing in each region.

Objetivo

To analyze the relationship of access policies for the oncological service in Brazil.

Método

This is an ecological time-series study in which information was collected from databases made available by the Brazilian National Cancer Institute and the SUS Informatics Department (DATASUS; http://www.datasus.gov.br), regarding the Hospital Information Sub-System (SIH-SUS), as well as data from the SUS Outpatient Information System (SIA-SUS), a highly complex module for oncologic care (APAC/ONCO), throughout Brazil. The search took place between May and June 2021, and the temporal cut was in the last five years. The variables analyzed through descriptive statistics were: number of visits, diagnostic tests and home care.

Resultado

It is revealed that SUS subsidizes most oncological treatments due to their high cost and that about 25% of the Brazilian population has access to such service. Nevertheless, it showed that the health system is highly dependent on the private sector, especially for diagnostic and therapeutic support services, where only 28.4% of mammography services, 51% of ultrasound machines and 31.9% of hospitals are public resources, which can be explained by the Brazilian regional differences in the socioeconomic aspect. With this, it is revealed a disparity of accessibility to services and that this situation may be linked to the lack of a management front, and that the construction of networks among oncological services is among the alternatives to minimize this social problem.

Conclusão

We noted that the access policies for oncological services are fragile and that this affects the whole process, from diagnosis to treatment, as well as the planning of policy adjustments.

Palavras-chave

Health Policies; Cancer; Unified Health System.