Brasília - Racial disparities are mirrored in the healthcare delivered to the population. This is the theme of the letter issued on Friday (20), the final day of the National Seminar on the Health of the Black Population, in Brasília. The fight for racial equality in healthcare was debated by representatives of the Ministry of Health, the Presidents of the National Council of State Secretaries of Health and the National Council of Municipal Secretaries of Health, the representative to Brazil of the Pan-American Health Organization, the National Council of Health, and the Special Secretariat for Policies to Promote Racial Equality (Seppir).

The seminar's final statement, entitled "A cry for equality," reaffirms the need to improve government healthcare policies for blacks. "Racism dehumanizes and disqualifies the health effort and results in a lower life expectancy for the black population: The rates of infant and maternal mortality are greater, and violence produces more deaths and earlier deaths in this group."

The participants signed a letter of proposals in which social inclusion and the reduction of levels of vulnerability are considered prerequisites for improving Brazil's public health system. Maria Inês Barbosa, chief of staff of the Seppir, said that the seminar demonstrates that the health characteristics of the black population are "perverse."

"Blacks make up 60% of the poor and 70% of the extremely poor." According to Barbosa, there should be other measures in other areas of government policy to save this population, which is mostly black, from these living conditions. The Ministry of Health is attempting a dialogue with state and municipal health administrators to find a joint solution.

Agência Brasil
Reporter: Christiane Peres
Translator: David Silberstein
08/23/2004