Considerations on the Sistema Único de Saúde in the twenty-first century: an interview with Lígia Bahia

Abstract

This interview with Lígia Bahia explores evaluations of the first 25 years of Brazil’s Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) and analyzes the project’s progress, impasses, and missteps. Bahia is critical of both tendencies currently found within SUS: the one that sees the system as aimed at equity and the other posing equality as its goal. She criticizes the ambivalence that various spheres of government have displayed in their decisions regarding large corporate groups and private health insurance plans, which conflict with the ideas of SUS. She evaluates the participation of doctors and other healthcare professionals in the system. Lastly, she analyzes the emergence of identity politics, which are missing from the public health reform project, whose emphasis was on equality.

Lígia Bahia (1955- ); Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS); public health reform; equity; equality