The Right to Health as a Tool of Social Control: Compulsory Treatment Orders by Courts in Brazil.
IF 2.5 3区 医学Q2 PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL & OCCUPATIONAL HEALTHHealth and Human RightsPub Date : 2022-06-01
Luciano Bottini Filho
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Brazilian citizens have a constitutional right to health. This right has also been a powerful instrument in the judicial enforcement of drug dependence treatment in Brazil. This study reviews a sample of decisions from the state of São Paulo and provides evidence that the right to health has been used to justify compulsory admission to treatment for people deemed to have a drug use disorder. These claims are filed against the state, mainly by families, who argue that the right to health of individuals is being violated. This model of litigation-oriented toward the satisfaction of a presumed health care need-does not engage sufficiently with individual informed consent and participation in the delivery of treatment, as a person-centered approach would demand. Further, the judgments reveal a low level of awareness among judges about the procedural rights of people ordered to undergo compulsory treatment, despite the large-scale implementation of the right to health via courts in Brazil. This problematic interpretation of the right to health, in the context of mounting punitive policies and ideology in Brazil, can be harmful to people who use drugs and bring about an environment of more limited patient safeguards.
期刊介绍:
Health and Human Rights began publication in 1994 under the editorship of Jonathan Mann, who was succeeded in 1997 by Sofia Gruskin. Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners In Health, assumed the editorship in 2007. After more than a decade as a leading forum of debate on global health and rights concerns, Health and Human Rights made a significant new transition to an online, open access publication with Volume 10, Issue Number 1, in the summer of 2008. While continuing the journal’s print-only tradition of critical scholarship, Health and Human Rights, now available as both print and online text, provides an inclusive forum for action-oriented dialogue among human rights practitioners.