HDPA Director evaluates the financial impact on charitable hospitals after approval of the nursing room

Photo: Maylla Nunes / Acorda Cidade

Cardiologist and medical director of Dom Pedro de Alcantara Hospital (HDPA), Edval Gomes, evaluated the effects of the approval of Act No. The health unit is a charity and is managed by Santa Casa de Misericórdia.

The law passed by the President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, has been heavily criticized by entities in the health sector for not indicating the source of funding for the payment of salaries of professionals and for creating budgetary effects on both the public and private network.

According to the new legislation, the minimum amount for nurses must be R$4,750, nursing technologists, at least 70% of this amount, and nursing assistants and midwives, 50%.

In the opinion of the HDPA director, nurses have historically had difficulty with salaries and are undervalued in terms of the importance of the activity they perform, with many earning less than minimum wage.

This claim is completely fair and should be corrected and the policy that should make this correction. Now, a problem cannot be corrected, creating a second problem, which can be more serious, as it can jeopardize the functioning of the SUS. It is important to emphasize that today more than 170,000 beds out of just over 300,000 existing by SUS in the country are from charitable hospitals. In some areas, benefactors practically perform the service, for example, in Bahia, almost 70% of oncology consultations are philanthropists, in Aristides Maltez, Santa Casa, etc. In cardiology, more than a third of all that is done is also very complex,” he noted.

He argued that the new law should generate a fiscal impact of more than 20 billion R$ per year for the health system, and that it was necessary to discuss the source of the resources for paying the salaries of professionals.

“In the private system, this should equate to the increase in health plan values, but this is not expected for benefactors, and what we are going to do is reduce costs, provide lower quality, cheaper service, and put people out of work. Today Santa Casa has a deficit of 200 thousand Real per month, which is a struggle the Foundation is trying to reverse. With this decision, we will go from 200 R$ to nearly 500,000 Rls. We risk not providing the service. It is essential that the source of funding appears. What I saw from Santas Casas e Filantropicas and from the Continental Confederations Is that no one knows where this money comes from. Will the municipality and the state together with the union pay for this deficit? A law was enacted without specifying the source of the funding, thus leaving benefactors in the country, more than 1,800 hospitals across the country, 30% of the municipalities (more than a thousand) that are entirely dependent on Santas Casas, in this concern,” he emphasized.

Also in an interview with Acorda Cidade, on Wednesday morning, Mayor Colbert Martins reported that in 2021 he was in Brasilia at least five times to deal with the increase in the floor of nursing professionals.

“We had an idea of the level of repercussions this could have. What is certain is that the nursing floor, social workers, pharmacists and other professionals were approved. The Santas Casas impact is greater in nursing, but in all areas there have been approved floors. And we insist on approval. On PEC 122, which has not yet been approved by the President of the National Congress, Rodrigo Pacheco, which specifies the source of the money to be paid. It has been passed, but not yet approved. So we have an idea of the controversy and the problem, unfortunately the delay in approval The PEC was not allowed to vote in advance.

According to Colbert Martins, payments were left by the public sector on January 1, and the largest penalty was specifically with the private sector. “The president of Santas Casas, Representative Antonio Brito, shared with us all this, voted for the floor, like all the others, and now it is up to us to search for effective alternatives. This will affect the payroll of the SUS, states and municipalities. This effect has not been measured enough, but we Now we need to ascertain the source.”

Listen to the full interview: