Publications IPH Magazine Annals of Summaries: 38th Congress of Hospital Administration and Health Management Interview with Paulo Roberto Segatelli Câmara, Chairman of the 38th Congress

IPH - As part of the 38th Congress of Hospital Administration and Health Management (38º Congresso Brasileiro de Administração Hospitalar e Gestão em Saúde), IPH interviews Mr. Paulo Câmara, chairman of the Congress, on his ideas regarding the event and the proposals from the Brazilian Federation of Hospital Managers (Federação Brasileira de Administradores Hospitalares). 

Paulo Câmara - First of all, I would like to thank the Instituto de Pesquisas Hospitalares Arquiteto Jarbas Karman that has always given us the honor to receive them in several events organized by the Federation, our partnership goes way back. In the name of the board, I state our gratitude in receiving such an important entity that has always represented what we are today, which is the professionalism in health management in this country. IPH has always thought about that and we give this project continuation within the Federation by encouraging thorough health professionalization in all the areas of management, architecture, administration, medical, nursing. This year's theme, which in my point of view is very interesting, is Whole Health. 

Thinking health as a whole goes way beyond thinking health inside hospitals. We are proposing reflections regarding the environment, water treatment, cautious use of goods, recycling the water that is so scarce to us - especially here in the city of São Paulo - pollution, means of transportation, means through which the Brazilian population moves around. Nowadays employees from health institutions, and others as well, waste two to three hours in traffic, which is harmful to someone's health. Encouraging better eating habits, more appropriate, means we are thinking of Whole Health, a broader concept for the population. We believe that the only way to solve the problems in the health system is to think health is this broader sense. With proper water treatment, sewage treatment. If we don't do this, we won't be healthy and it will be very hard to bear the costs of treatments if we don't start preventions in the beginning. That is why we are thinking about Whole Health. So we start at Whole Health: Planning to Serve. Planning. In our point of view we have to improve a lot health planning in Brazil, we have to make better use of our resources; we seldom see a health institution working within a network. In my point of view, nowadays, each health entity works independently; it does not have any connections with other health institutions. And for the health system to work in Brazil and in other countries as well, we must think of networking, all the health system connected, and referring patients to one another so we can best serve our population.

Nowadays, for instance, it is common for a person to look for treatment in one health institution and later she cannot continue her treatment because this network does not exist and the whole work is jeopardized. As a consequence, this person will not have her treatment concluded, which means, her rehabilitation, diagnosis. She only has access to the first appointment, most of the times she mistakenly goes to the emergency unity for not having access to health unities. This is why we think of planning prior to serving, because we think that our population is being underserved. Nowadays, our population must stay years in line for a hernia surgery. We see overpopulated maternities, mothers giving birth in ambulances, reception desks. So I think we must better think and plan the health system in order to be able to serve the Brazilian population that in my opinion is still severely poorly served in almost every region of our country - even though we have already improved a lot. I travel a lot, I know many places, many health unities, public and private ones, UPAS, UBS, and I see that the difficulties are present in almost every state in Brazil.