President Dilma Rousseff announced on November 8 the creation of a nation-wide home care program (“Melhor em Casa”), aiming to expand the services of the Brazilian National Health System (SUS). The goal is to achieve by 2014 one thousand home care teams and 400 support teams throughout the country. Investments are expected to reach 600 million dollars. Each home care team shall be composed primarily of doctors, nurses, nursing technicians and physiotherapists that should care for an average of 60 patients per month.

The federal government has also launched a strategic action (“SOS Emergências”) to improve the emergency care in 40 major Brazilian hospitals.

Each of these hospitals will receive annually 2 million dollars from the Ministry of Health in order to fund the expansion and upgrading of emergency assistance. An extra 1.7 million dollars should be availabe for equipment purchase and emergency room renovation. The action will be implemented under the National 24 Hours Health Network, coordinated by the Ministry of Health and enforced by state and municipal authorities across the country.