The health system in Rio Grande do Sul will undergo a change, especially in the Metropolitan Region, with the redistribution of care in those municipalities that were served by Canoas and which will now have other cities as a reference. This removes from the absorption capacity of this municipality, one million people who will be served by other cities.
The information was presented to the president of Granpal (Association of Municipalities of the Metropolitan Region of Porto Alegre), Rodrigo Battistella, by the Secretary of Health of the State, Arita Bergmann. She participated in the meeting that took place on Monday (20) between representatives of the association and the Chief Secretary of the Civil House, Arthur Lemos.
At the meeting, the representatives of the Metropolitan Region presented a worrying picture about the overcrowding of emergencies in municipal hospitals, and highlighted the need to increase state transfers to cities. Arita Bergmann said that there have been important advances, such as the 26 hospitals in the region that will receive increases in oncology services.
According to her, only Hospital Centenário, in São Leopoldo, will receive R$ 3 million in funds for exams and other equipment, through a partnership with the Public Ministry. In addition, he highlighted, the State Government has invested in balancing the budget and distribution of patients, so that not only the Metropolitan Region is penalized by the excess of people.
Secretary Lemos, on the other hand, asked the mayors to support their requests that the Federal Government pay more attention to the transfer of funds for health. Assistir, a state program launched in August 2021, aims to promote health actions and services in hospitals contracted to provide services in the Unified Health System (SUS).
“According to the result of the meeting, the state government will take the pressure on Porto Alegre and Canoas that it had before the Assistir program and will redistribute it throughout the municipalities. This is because the budget loss in the municipal coffers prevents continuity in the volume of assistance. We cannot have less resources and serve the same volume of people as in the past”, says Battistella.
With the ICMS reduction, the value passed on by the program is unable to supply the demands of hospitals, forcing public administrations to use their own resources to invest in health.
According to the Secretary of Health of Canoas, Aristeu Ismailow, in his municipality alone there was a 20% increase in investments in health that came out of the city coffers to meet hospital demands, a percentage that in Esteio reached 36% of the own budget.
