Hospital AC Camargo makes an agreement with the Government of SP to maintain care in the SUS

The agreement between the Government of São Paulo and the AC Camargo hospital will “continue in the coming years”, announced this Thursday (18) Governor Rodrigo Garcia (PSDB) after a meeting with directors of the entity, which is a reference in the treatment of cancer.

The hospital had decided that it would stop serving SUS patients as of December, as anticipated by the Sheet. The entity’s justification for the measure was the lag in the table.

According to the governor, the state and municipal health departments will complement resources so that the hospital continues to provide care in the public sector, focusing efforts on more complex cases. The mayor of the capital, Ricardo Nunes (MDB), also participated in the meeting.

According to Victor Pereira de Andrade, CEO of the hospital, the unit will handle more complex cases and, when stable, the patient will be referred to other units.

“AC Camargo is a philanthropic hospital. Since its existence, we have been treating patients in the public sector. It is with joy that we reach the end of this meeting finding a way to continue doing this”, he declared after the meeting.

According to him, in practice, the hospital had not given up on collaborating with the public sector, but for that it was repositioning its social responsibility strategy, with a focus on prevention. “It is a great satisfaction to know that we will have sustainability to continue providing the service we provide today.”

The news of the end of care by the SUS was received with concern by NGOs supporting cancer patients, especially considering the queue of more than 3,000 people in the state awaiting cancer treatment at the Cacons (High Complexity Assistance Centers in Oncology), regulated by the Cross platform (Health Services Regulation Center).

For the entities, the closure would represent a risk of an increase in the queue and delay in treatment, in addition to shaking patients who would need to be transferred and affecting the training of future professionals.

According to Andrade informed when announcing the previous decision to end this service, while the SUS pays R$ 10 for a medical consultation, the insurance companies reimburse, on average, R$ 100. The variation is also large in treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Because of the difference, every year AC Camargo has to provide its own resources, coming from private services. In 2021, for example, SUS revenue was R$36 million and the hospital had to inject another R$98.46 million.

The lagged value was already changing the service profile. In 2017, the institution treated 1,500 new patients from the public system, while this year there were only 96. In all, there are 6,500 SUS patients, of which 1,500 had already been transferred by municipal management to other cancer centers.