Análise da assistência à saúde materna no cárcere.

Abstract

Health care in Brazil is a universal and free right guaranteed in the Magna Carta of 1988 and in infra-constitutional laws to all Brazilians without any distinction. However, access to comprehensive health care has challenges to be overcome, especially when it comes to access to health care for incarcerated people. In this context, the research focused on the study of the assistance to the integral health of pregnant women, women who have recently given birth, lactating women, and women with small children in the Brazilian prison system. It was based on the assumption that, due to the reality of overcrowding and disregard for Brazilian women's prisons, where there are violations of human and fundamental rights and subhuman survival conditions, this system is unable to offer quality health care to women prisoners who experience maternity. It is justified by the urgent need to seek solutions to ensure the health of these women and their children. In this sense, the study had as a general objective to analyze the effectiveness of the Brazilian prison system in providing health care services to pregnant women, women who have recently given birth, lactating or with small children who are serving a prison sentence. As for the specific objectives: To historian about the appearance and evolution of the feminine prison system in Brazil; to show the situation of feminine jail overcrowding; to demonstrate the lack of adequacy to the constitutional principle of the dignity of the human being, as well as, of the social function of the penalty; to make considerations about the legal devices that guarantee the right to integral health of the convicted person; discuss the laws that ensure the right to health of pregnant women, women who have recently given birth, nursing mothers and children under 12 years of age; reflect on solutions to inefficiency of the prison system regarding the health care of pregnant women, women who have recently given birth, nursing mothers and women with small children in prison. In order to meet the listed objectives, the research used the deductive method as to the approach and as to the historical-evolutionary the documentary procedure. As for the research technique, the bibliographical method was adopted. The results show that despite the existence of vast legislation ensuring health care for women who experience maternity in prison, the reality is that the prison system is flawed, inefficient and its health actions are ineffective, leaving this group of women and their children helpless and abandoned to their fate. The study suggests public policies to inspect the prison system in order to guarantee a minimum of assistance and dignity to these women. In addition, it is proposed that the judiciary act to provide alternative sentences to imprisonment that safeguard the law and justice.