Organização de sistemas nacionais de saúde: diferenças e semelhanças entre Brasil e Cuba

Abstract

Cuba and Brazil are very different countries that have built their health systems based on the assumptions of Primary Health Care. Objective: to describe comparatively the organization of Brazilian and Cuban health systems in order to identify best practices. Method: case study, exploratory-descriptive, qualitative approach, with different strategies of data collection. Main results: Brazil is a continental country with extreme differences and inequalities, which built the Unified Health System in the late 1980s and has experienced numerous threats to maintaining health as a universal right. Cuba built the National Health System as of the 1959 Revolution and has since maintained health as a universal right of the entire population. Among the main differences, we highlight: social participation and financing, totally public in Cuba as opposed to the growing private financing in Brazil.