DIREITO À SAÚDE EM TEMPOS DE PANDEMIA DA COVID-19 NO ESTADO DE RONDÔNIA

Abstract

This paper raises the issue “does the unavailability of ICU beds in the SUS for the population of Rondônia, in the COVID-19 pandemic violate the fundamental right to health?” under the hypotheses of scarce resources and lack of universal and equal access of the population to the ICUs. The general objective of this work is to analyze the health, social and economic policies implemented by the State of Rondônia through the guarantee of universal and equal access of its population to COVID ICU hospital beds in its health network. Specifically, it aims to verify the effective measures adopted by the State, outlining an outlook that involves the setting of the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS), the (un) availability of COVID ICU beds, and Decrees published since the onset of the pandemic. We identified that the measures adopted by the State to fight the pandemic have been inefficient. According to data obtained in the survey, Rondônia occupies the national ranking of mortality by COVID with 348.3 deaths/100 thousand inhabitants. It is the second State with the worst expansion rate of ICU beds (56.2%) in the northern region. Thus, we can conclude that the State has severely violated the fundamental right to health and the principle of human dignity. This study employed a hypothetical, deductive method, employing techniques of literature review and research of court decisions, scientific papers, media articles, and publications on the Government Transparency Portal in 2020 and 2021.

Keywords: Right to health. Fundamental right. Universal Access. Unified Health System. Covid-19. Constitutional.