Is health the right of everyone?

Abstract

We cannot deny the advances and achievements after the Brazilian Constitution of 1988 and the creation of the Unified and Decentralized Health System (SUDS), the current Unified Health System (SUS). These have been 24 years of learning, with many successes but with the same proportion of failures, which reveal to us the need of adjustments and improvements.

The Brazilian Magna Carta, in article 196, states "Health is the right of all and a duty of the State...." The World Health Organization conceptualizes it as "the perfect physical, mental, and social well-being". Therefore, some questions arise: what is truly health and what is our role in its promotion? Is it possible to achieve the perfect well-being status? Do we limit ourselves to the prevention and recovery of the biological health?

It would be too simplistic to look at health as the "absence of disease". However, it is extremely pretentious to think that we are able to provide total well-being. After all, health is much more than appointments taken by doctors, nurses, and other health professionals. Thus, while health is the right of all, it must be considered in its totality, overcoming the understanding of basic absence of disease to reach the social, psychological, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

We must (re) think our role in society because it transcends the care of a sick body or simply the avoidance of sickness. Additionally, we must think about the training of new professionals, whom, in addition to the intellectual, technical, and managerial competence, also need the social political commitment, reflected by the qualities expressed in the articles published in REUOL. E