A public hearing held by the Health Committee of the Legislative Assembly of the State of São Paulo (Alesp) on the morning of this Thursday (12), at Unicamp, reaffirmed the need to expand the number of beds and called for greater investment in the regional public assistance network, responsible for serving patients of the Unified Health System (SUS).
Organized by Congresswoman Bruna Furlan (PSDB), chairwoman of the committee, the hearing aimed to diagnose the sector in the 42 municipalities that make up the Regional Health Department VII (DRS-VII). Held in the auditorium of the Institute of Otorhinolaryngology & Head and Neck Surgery (IOU) at Unicamp, the meeting was attended by parliamentarians, municipal health secretaries and health professionals and employees from Campinas and the region.
“We have a significant shortage of beds,” warned the director of DRS-VII, Fábio Curi. “Certainly other regions of the state are better supported than we are when it comes to complexity.” Curi said he recognized “the significant improvement” seen in recent years in relation to funding for the area, but noted that waiting lists for specialties and overcrowding in emergency rooms still persist.
Campinas Health Secretary Lair Zambon reinforced the idea of the gap. “The city is overwhelmed,” he said. According to Zambon, in 2021, the population that depends on the SUS in Campinas totaled 650 people. Today, it has reached 875. “In addition, in three years, the volume of lawsuits against the city government has tripled.”
“We have a serious shortage of beds. And what’s worse: we have nowhere else to buy them from,” warned the secretary, recalling that, in the past, the federal government covered 70% of the city’s health care costs. “Today, that has reversed. To give you an idea, Campinas now pays 77% of the city’s health care costs.”
The director of the Executive Board of the Health Area (Deas) at Unicamp, Luiz Carlos Zeferino, recalled that the Hospital de Clínicas (HC) at Unicamp has fewer beds compared to, for example, similar ones in Ribeirão Preto and Rio Preto, despite being a reference for a larger population.
HC superintendent Elaine Ataíde, in turn, said that the region needs an oncology hospital.
According to experts, the construction of a regional hospital in Campinas, as announced in the first week of June by Governor Tarcísio de Freitas, will help, but will not yet solve the problems related to excess demand. According to the governor, the bidding for the construction of the new hospital should be launched in the second half of the year.
Unicamp's rector, Professor Paulo Cesar Montagner, who participated in the hearing, stated that the university's healthcare sector faces many challenges. Montagner recalled, for example, that the model adopted by Unicamp is different from that of the other two public state universities – the University of São Paulo (USP) and the São Paulo State University (Unesp). At Unicamp, the hospital's funding comes from the institution's own budget.
“This is an important topic that we need to discuss. We need to discuss future alternatives so that we can make our health system increasingly stronger and more agile, in order to have the best and be able to offer a better service to the population,” said the rector, who reaffirmed the intention of keeping the Sumaré State Hospital (HES) under the administration of Unicamp.
