Health termites, the main pest of Rio's public administration

The arrest of Edmar Santos and the seizure of suitcases and bags containing approximately R$6 million from his properties are ingredients in yet another chapter of the unbelievable saga of Rio de Janeiro's public administrators, who, recalcitrant, insist on transforming healthcare, and indeed healthcare, into a counter for shady deals.

Corruption, as Ulysses Guimarães said, is the termite of the Republic: it silently infiltrates and destroys public administration in general. If this is true, it's also a fact that, in the state of Rio, the termites of corruption have an irresistible preference for the public health administration system.

It is always there, in such an essential sector, that they develop and are nourished, criminally fueled by all manner of fraud and embezzlement. Voracious, they destroy almost everything, though not always visible. Ultimately, they produce an unbelievable shift in the logic of public health services—which cease to fulfill their essential function of saving lives and instead produce deaths, many deaths due to a lack of resources and, consequently, a lack of care.

In recent years, almost all of Rio's health secretaries have been arrested and caught stealing and looting.
The arrests of Sérgio Cortes, during the Cabral administration, and Edmar Santos, during the Witzel administration, are prime examples of this sad fate of Rio de Janeiro society.

Rio de Janeiro does not deserve to live with such a degrading situation. Banning corruption from public health is our greatest challenge today. Unequivocally, termites in the health sector are the most deleterious plague to be eradicated from the state's public administration.