Framework

The demographic and epidemiological transition has determined changes in the morbidity and mortality profile of the Brazilian population. The highest rates of morbidity and mortality from chronic nontransmittable diseases are increasing by the year, accounting for about 70% of health spending in the country. Due to its progressive and degenerative evolution, chronic health conditions demand continuous and permanent care - which includes palliative care at various levels of the health care network.

Palliative care tends to grow. It is estimated that in the country, every year about 500 thousand people need to resort to this type of care and 80% of this number corresponds to cancer patients (Cancer Foundation, 2011). This reality will require a more qualified response by the Brazilian health policy, needing to be anchored in a perspective of global support to the multiple problems of the patients who are in the most advanced stage of the disease and at the end of life.

The right to health is an indispensable characteristic for the exercise of citizenship. The effort to guarantee the right to health refers to the process of citizenship itself, that is, the process of giving formal guarantees effectively exercised by social authors in their daily lives. It must be understood and (adopted) as a fundamental social right preserving life and respecting human dignity. Understanding the right to health as the right to citizenship goes beyond a formal or legal discussion.

This seminar intends to discuss and reflect on palliative care and its processes in the perspective of Law, Health and Citizenship. The seminar will list the methodological pathways adopted in the doctoral research on palliative care in cancer, its legal bases and will point out some results referring to the state of the art of the implementation process in the Network of Attention to Brazilian Health.

Bio note

Ernani Costa Mendes is a physiotherapist and senior technologist at the Instituto Nacional de Câncer José de Alencar Gomes da Silva do Brasil (INCA). He holds an MA in Biological Sciences and a PhD in Public Health from the National School of Public Health/Fiocruz under a joint protocol with the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra. Currently conducting a PhD internship at the Centre for Social Studies (CES).

Activity within the VII Seminar Series «Social Sciences and Health. Healthcare systems - challenges and critical issues».