Brazil is well-known abroad these days as a rapidly developing economic power, not just in the western hemisphere but in world terms too. After all the country has now the sixth largest annual GDP in the world as well as the fifth largest land area and population.
There have also been big advances in recent years in the general welfare of the average Brazilian, the workers and citizens who are the bedrock of the large strides made by the country. Overseas people observe, for example, the immensely popular ‘Minha Casa, Minha Vida’ affordable housing scheme which has done so much to give people on modest incomes a real stake in their society in the last few years. They also hear about improved education and training opportunities plus of course the host of employment and economic advances made by this sub continent sized country.
An important element of all this is something not often mentioned the greatly enhanced health of the average citizen in Brazil and the advanced provision to maintain this in Brazil in recent years. Things in that area are still not perfect or universal of course but tremendous strides have been taken, with more on the way.
Good quality healthcare for everyone is a right in Brazil, guaranteed by the Constitution. The public health service (the SUS) is overseen by the Federal Minister of Health but much of the day to day administration is the responsibility of the individual states.
According to the Brazilian Government many real and solid improvements have been made in the last couple of decades. However, there are still some problems remaining (however much they are shrinking) and the authorities recognise them as serious.
Generally speaking the persisting health issues fall into four main groups of issues. The first is childhood mortality which has come down a lot but is still averaging about 2.5 %. Another is maternal mortality which is running at 0.07 % for all confinements in the country. In addition there are around 230 deaths per hundred thousand people each year because of cancer or heart problems. Finally there are about 72 mortalities per year per hundred thousand caused by ‘external violence’ including accidents, murder and suicide.
These grim statistics are depressing but the Government believes that steady progress in reducing them continues to be made.
All this has led to an impressive rise in Brazilian life expectancy in recent times. Nowadays a female can expect to live to 77 years on average and a male citizen 70. Well over a decade improvement in both cases since the 1990’s. Both could be improved even further if the sixteen percent of Brazilians still smoking could reduce or give up!
Related articles
- President Dilma Rousseff has announced massive new funding for Brazil’s historic sites (scamwatchbrazil.wordpress.com)
scamwatchbrazil 