Centro Brasileiro de Estudos de Saúde: movimento em defesa do direito à saúde

Abstract

The struggle for the right to health in Brazil resulted in the conquest, in the Federal Constitution of 1988, of health as a universal right and duty of the state to be assured through integrated economic and social policies, aimed at the production of well-being and quality of life of the Brazilian population, and in a universal public healthcare system: the Unified Healthcare System (Sistema Único de Saúde, SUS). The struggle for a universal public healthcare system began in the 1970s and persisted over the following decades, aiming at the implementation and consolidation of SUS. That has been a permanent task of action and mobilization by the Health Reform Movement (MRS), of which the Brazilian Center for Health Studies (Cebes) was the main protagonists. According to Paim 1 , people refer to the 1988 Constitution as a starting point for the creation of SUS. However, in reality, the Brazilian Sanitary Reform (RSB) movement, which formulates a broad concept for health and the SUS project itself, was born with Cebes in 1976, based on the initiative of David Capistrano Filho, a public health doctor and political activist. He managed to bring together a group of academics, students, professionals, and social movements in an effervescent debate on public health in a problematic Brazilian historical moment which was the period of the military dictatorship (1964-1984). Concurrent to the advent of Cebes and as a communication strategy of the entity, the Revista 'Saúde em Debate' (RSD) journal was created in 1976, to disseminate knowledge and reflections about health and the new political project that Cebes announced. In the first number of RSD, the banner for the defence of the right to health was raised. In the second issue, the foundations of the Sanitary Reform proposal were explained. The launch of the journal mobilized, at that time, important sectors of society, especially academics and students from public universities, health professionals, and social movements, helping in the construction of a broad national movement that received the name of Sanitary Reform Movement (MRS) 2,3 .