Between the court and the clinic: lawsuits for medicines and the right to health in Brazil.

Abstract

Right-to-health litigation is a widespread practice in southern Brazil. Government pharmaceutical programs are struggling to fulfill their goal of expanded access and rational use of medicines, and poor patients are leveraging public legal assistance and a receptive judiciary to hold the state accountable to their medical needs. "Judicialization" is an alternative pathway for accessing health care, increasingly understood as access to medicines of all kinds. Tracking the health outcomes and budgetary impacts of right to-health court cases could help inform adequate treatment policy and evaluate trends in access.