Healthcare judicialization: an analysis of indicators and official data on medications.
Nádia Bernardinis, Vanessa Terezinha Gubert, Cristiane Munaretto Ferreira and 1 others
PMID 39082531WHAT IT FOUND
Court-ordered medications in Campo Grande were often not delivered.
Median time from decision to delivery was 146 days; 587 of 1006 requests were not supplied, including after patient death.
Key findings
01419 medication requests were delivered and 587 were not delivered, with non-delivery linked to acquisition problems, physician treatment suspension, death, or inability to contact the patient.
02Judges granted provisional relief supplying the requested medication in 1,005 requests, but the median time from process start to that decision was 34 days.
03183 of 284 requested medications were not on the official lists analysed, and 64.79% of requests were for medications outside the Pharmaceutical Assistance funding components.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The judicial records were incomplete: only 87 of 676 processes had all indicator data, and 589 had incomplete data. The Municipal Health Department did not have a systematized database, so the researchers manually built it from digitized judicial process copies, which may accentuate missing data. The study did not access medical prescriptions or other documents attached to some processes. There was no traceability after the judicial decision for medication receipt, patient use, or treatment efficacy. The analysis was a one-time description of administrative and legal records, so it cannot show that judicialization caused poor medication access or that any management change would improve delivery. Data on patient registration in health services before judicial demand were not identified.
Declared interests
No funding or conflict-of-interest statement is included in the supplied article text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the 99.90% provisional relief rate as proof that patients received treatment. Only 419 of 1006 medication requests were delivered, and 587 were not supplied.