The Unified Health System (SUS) has 340 million active registrations, according to the Ministry of Health, informed the column. The number is much higher than the number of people living in the country. The last Census, released in June this year, showed that Brazil has 203 million inhabitants.
The Ministry of Health justified that the number of active registrations exceeds the population estimate due to the universalization of care, which covers foreign users and death records. The ministry declared that the duplicate registrations are a result of “SUS’s priority in ensuring care for everyone, even in situations where patients cannot provide complete data at the time of care”.
In January, Lula sanctioned the law that makes the CPF the only general registration number in Brazil. The text provides that public body systems, including the SUS, must adapt to the measure within a period of 12 months.
Representative Julio Lopes, from the PP of Rio de Janeiro, took the SUS problem to the president of the Federal Court of Auditors, Bruno Dantas, and said that he will sue the STF against the government. “There is no greater demonstration of disorder and lack of control than this,” he said.
The lack of control over SUS records hinders the monitoring of medical services provided in the country and can lead to distortion of health data. It also makes monitoring against fraudulent procedures and medication diversion more difficult.
The Ministry of Health stated that it “continues to work on linking duplicate registrations as soon as it obtains sufficient data to guarantee accurate identification of the user, reinforcing its commitment to efficiency and transparency in the management of this information”.
