The Decisive Role of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Implementing Comprehensive Health Care: Access to Elective Treatments

Abstract

The purpose of this article was to analyze, through a literature review, how the extrajudicial action of the Public Prosecutor’s Office contributes to the provision of comprehensive health care, within a reasonable timeframe, to patients who are on waiting lists for elective treatments. Using the deductive method, the work focused on the doctrinal and normative analysis of Health Law and differentiated the levels of complexity of treatments adopted in the Brazilian Public Health System, as well as the criteria for classifying urgent, emergency and elective cases. Based on this distinction, the study pointed out that elective patients are deprioritized compared to urgent and emergency cases, as they are sent to a single waiting list, where they await the scheduling of specialized consultations, surgeries and laboratory tests, without an expected service date. Due to the time lapse, patients’ health deteriorates, which can have irreversible consequences for their lives, contradicting the state’s duty to guarantee fundamental rights. Thus, users of the system look to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, an Entity authorized to act in court (litigation approach) or outside of it (resolution approach), to restrain the public authorities from executing health services. It was possible to conclude that there is a preference for the use of resolutive acts, such as civil inquiries, public hearings, conduct adjustment agreements and health guidance, to mediate conflicts involving the demands presented. Furthermore, through extrajudicial means, the Public Prosecutor’s Office can act as a mediator and assist in the creation of strategies for the implementation of the right to health, in time for the recovery of patients.