TJ-RJ veto list of patients waiting for surgeries at SUS

In violation of the fundamental right to privacy, the special body of the Court of Justice of Rio de Janeiro has declared that the publication of the names of patients awaiting surgeries and supplementary examinations in the Municipal Health Network of the city of São José do Valle do Rio Preto is unconstitutional. .

Municipal Law 2,281/2021, initiated by the City Council, established the measure for compliance with publicity and transparency in the Unified Health System. The city of São Jose do Valle do Rio Preto questioned the rule, arguing that disclosing patients’ names violated the right to privacy. He also emphasized that only the executive authority could propose such a rule.

Defending the law, the city council asserted that the goal was “only to legitimize and give maximum efficiency and administrative transparency to its actions.”

The case’s rapporteur, Bernardo Moreira Garces Neto, indicated that there was no deputy to the initiative. After all, the Federal Supreme Court has already decided the possibility of passing a municipal act on a parliamentary initiative to implement the constitutional propaganda principle, provided that it does not create, abolish or modify an administrative body or give it a new attribution (RE 1,133,156 ).

However, the judge estimated that by limiting the disclosure of patients’ full names, municipal law would violate the right to privacy. In addition, the rapporteur noted that the rule failed to take into account the limits of State Law 8.782 / 2020, which provides for the online publication of the waiting list of patients who will undergo elective surgeries and high-cost examinations performed using SUS resources. …and thus, local law extrapolated the limits of the municipality’s complementary jurisdiction in dealing with health, Garcíz puts it.

In this way, the Rapporteur voted to declare unconstitutional, while reducing the text, the phrase “patient’s full name” contained in the single paragraph of Article 1, and without reducing the text, of Articles 3, 2, 4 and 4, to exclude any interpretation that permits publication of the patient’s full name, As well as any sensitive personal information relating to it, to Municipal Law No. 2.281/2021.

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