Lawsuits as a tool to lien access to medicine: experience of Santos - SP

Abstract

Introduction: The Constitution of 1988 made health a right of all and a duty of the State with universal and equal access to actions and services. In the area of pharmaceutical care to ensure access to medicines is a challenge for the wide variety of active ingredients and pharmaceutical industry influence. In pursuit of constitutional law some users resort to support the judiciary to get the supply of drugs. Objective: Draw the profile of lawsuits to obtain drugs in a Municipal Health. Methods: This study analyzed 54 lawsuits, the city of Santos / SP, through a descriptive analysis of a quantitative approach and retrospectively from January to December 2010. Results: We found that in 61% of cases the applicant was female with an average age of 56 years. The group most requested by Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification, was the cardiovascular system, with 34.4%. For the classification based on the components of pharmaceutical care drugs considered "unfunded defined" was the majority group (57.0%) followed by primary care medicines (35.9%). Regarding the defendant's action, 76% were concurrently filed against county and state. From 2007 to 2010 there was an increase of approximately 83.5% in municipal costs in the purchase of medicines requested judicial process. Conclusions: In order to have an environment with access to quality medicines and rationality it is necessary to discuss the essential drug lists of government programs and create a dialogue between the Judiciary and Health System prescriptions with streamlined, avoiding the constitutional harm the budget of pharmaceutical care.