SUS registration and system that issues vaccine certificate prevent use of social name

Trans people are being prevented from using their social name in some of the main SUS (Unified Health System) records. The problem happens on the eve of Trans Visibility Day, celebrated this Saturday (29).

The option to include the social name is blocked in Cadweb SUS, a platform used by health servers for consultation, alteration and inclusion of SUS patient records.

Something similar happens with vaccination certificates issued by ConectSUS, an application of the Ministry of Health. The certificates are issued with the user’s registered name, even if the social name is registered.

In the case of Cadweb SUS, the field provided for entering the patient’s social name appears as unavailable — it is possible to change all other fields on the form, except this one. Servers claim that they noticed the blockage at least a month ago, but the problem has not been resolved.

Some states and municipalities have other systems that can be used in place of the national registry and, thus, are able to mitigate the damage caused by the error. Most of the time, when there is the possibility of using another program, the municipal or state system transfers the data to the national one, superimposing the information, including the social name.​

Another alternative has been to put the data through the E-SUS platform and then synchronize it with CadSUS, an administrative tool that concentrates the national registry of SUS users.

Officials reported that the Ministry of Health’s systems began to show instability since the hacker attacks suffered by the folder in December 2021.

The Ministry of Health states, in a note, that the instability of the system was due to the integration of data from CadSUS with information from the Federal Revenue, a unification that is being carried out within the systems of the Federal Government.

According to the folder, the change took place in compliance with decree nº 10.046/2019, which establishes the Citizen Base Register. The folder did not explain why only the social name field appears blocked in the Cadweb SUS register.

Caia Maria Coelho, researcher and vice-coordinator of Natrape (New Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals of Pernambuco), received the first complaints about the problem in the system about a month ago while she was developing the work of monitoring public policies for the transsexual population in your organization.

The researcher says that as soon as the problem was identified, the Ministry of Health was notified, but there was no resolution.

“The social name disappeared overnight, and this is a guarantee won by the trans population and we don’t get an answer. This is very worrying”, he says. “It is unacceptable that a mistake should happen at this political moment of dismantling of various rights. It is very worrying.”

Since 2009, SUS patients have the right to use their social name, regardless of what is established in the civil registry. An ordinance from the Ministry of Health in August of that year ensured that the user’s preferred name was used.

Bruna Benevides, secretary of political articulation at Antra (National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals), highlights that not guaranteeing the insertion of the social name constitutes a violation of the human rights of trans and transvestites.

“We have a federal decree that determines the recognition and use of gender identity and the social name of trans people. Denying the social name has been responsible for the exclusion of trans people from various spaces”, he declares. “Trans people must have the right to a social name guaranteed in all public policies.”

ConectSUS vaccination certificates are also not issuing the social name of patients. The personal data contained in the document are the civil registration name, CPF, mother’s name, birth, sex and nationality.

Users who use the social name report that even when they have the SUS national card and the vaccination certificate that is filled in by health agents when applying the immunizer updated with the social name, the online certificate is not issued correctly.

Nicolas Barros, 28, says he was able to issue the certificate with the social name before the hacker attack suffered by the Ministry of Health. Since then, his registration name appears on the document. In the app, on the other hand, your data was always out of date.

Barros feels that the system has been weakened after the attacks, as although his information has been updated since 2018, his social name does not appear in any of the SUS records.

“Especially for people who may be in the process of rectification or those who have more dysphoria with social treatment, it’s something that makes it very difficult. We fight a lot to have our name in places, to feel represented, so it’s something we we shouldn’t be going through”, he says, referring to gender dysphoria, a persistent anguish due to the incompatibility between the gender that the person identifies with and the one assigned to them at birth, which can be associated with diseases such as anxiety and depression.

The Ministry of Health did not respond to questions about the absence of the social name on the vaccination certificate.