December 23, 2022

17:12

Gabriel Abreu – From Amazon Agency

MANAUS – Soon after being announced this Thursday, 22, by the president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), to lead the Ministry of Health, Nísia Trindade defended the maximum use of all the potential of the Single Health System (SUS), essential during the pandemic of Covid-19 faced by Brazil, in the last two years. Nísia is the first woman to head the ministry and is current president of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz).

“The priority is to use all the potential of the Single Health System (SUS), with its own services, the area that involves philanthropic hospitals, which account for 50% of SUS admissions, and also the private sector for a great effort, in the sense that we put criteria, indicate and signal the priority referrals for regulation, giving transparency to this process”, said the future minister, who adds:

“This is an effort that we are already working on, and there are many elements in the transition to help us in this regard. We are also thinking of task-forces in areas where there are gaps in assistance; this is the priority focus, as President Lula himself has been saying”, said the future minister.

Progress

For the epidemiologist from Fiocruz, Jesem Orellana, the nomination of Nísia Trindade to the Ministry of Health has multiple meanings. It represents a victory of science, of the Single Health System (SUS) and of its tens of millions of users, especially the most vulnerable. For being the first woman to command the Ministry of Health, it denotes unprecedented progress in the fight against structural machismo that has dominated the management of the Ministry of Health since its creation.

“However, although we are optimistic with the return of the effective operation of such an important portfolio and with the urgent need to recover the image of the Minister of Health in Brazil, we must remember that the situation of the portfolio is extremely delicate, not only due to the cuts in financial resources and the disastrous management of recent years, but also due to the challenge that Nísia Trindade will have to fulfill her mandate effectively and with the support of the legislative, judiciary, executive, health workers, strategic representatives of the organized civil society and other SUS managers”, analyzes Orellana.

Actions

As president of Fiocruz, Nísia Trindade led the institution’s actions to fight the pandemic, such as the creation of a new hospital centre on the Manguinhos campus; the increase in the national capacity to produce diagnostic kits and process test results; the promotion of initiatives for vulnerable populations; the creation of the Covid-19 Observatory and the Fiocruz Genomic Surveillance Network; and the inauguration of the Covid-19 Biobank (BC19-Fiocruz).

While at the head of the institution, Fiocruz became the reference for the World Health Organization (WHO), in the Americas, for the diagnosis of Covid-19. The future minister also coordinated Fiocruz’s technological commissioning agreement. Among the achievements that mark Nísia’s trajectory in the institution is the interdisciplinary work in international cooperation agreements. In addition, she was a member of the WHO Global Action Plan working group (2018); the WHO advisory group for the implementation of Agenda 2030 (2019); among others.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, she also participated in several transnational cooperation forums and co-chaired the Economic Recovery Steering Group, one of the groups of the UN Research Roadmap for Covid-19 Recovery. In December 2020, she was elected a full member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), in the Social Sciences category, and in September 2021, she became an independent member of the Council of the Coalition for Innovations in Epidemic Preparedness (Cepi), having received several awards over the past years for the recognition of her work. 

Profile

Nísia Trindade Lima has been president of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) since 2017. She holds a PhD in Sociology (1997), a Master’s degree in Political Science (1989) from the University Institute of Research of Rio de Janeiro (Iuperj – now Iesp) and a degree in Social Sciences from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj, 1980). Her doctoral thesis, ‘Um Sertão Chamado Brasil’, won the prize for Best Doctoral Thesis in Sociology, at Iuperj, and its publication is in its second edition.

She was director of the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz (1998-2005), a unit of Fiocruz focused on research and memory in social sciences, history and health. She participated in the elaboration of the Museum of Life, Fiocruz’s award-winning science museum. At Editora Fiocruz (2006-2011), he worked on the implementation of the SciELO Books Network. She was Vice-President of Teaching, Information and Communication at Fiocruz (2011-2016), period in which she coordinated the National Weeks of Science and Technology in the institution and also the implementation of open access policies, with the aim of making available all the scientific production of the institution.