Monday, October 31, 2011

Lula´s cancer treatment divides Brazilians

By Gabriela Antunes
BuenosAiresHerald.com staff

As Lula starts his chemotherapy today at the state of the art hospital Sirio Libanes in Sao Paulo controversy hit Brazilian media and social networks. While Brazilians digested the news of Lula’s larynx cancer on Saturday, a debate emerged as whether he should or not be treated in a public hospital run by the State’s health system, the infamous SUS.

Brazilians took to social media both messages of support and indignation for Lula’s choice for treatment: one of the fanciest, most expensive hospitals in the country, inaccessible for most Brazilians.

The Sirio Libanes hospital sits at one of the most exclusive neighborhoods of Sao Paulo, Bela Vista, far from the grey and dim industrial outskirts of Sao Bernardo do Campo where Lula made a name as an obstinate union leader.

A reference in cancer treatment the facilities of the hospital were used by Lula’s successor
Dilma Rousseff – she was treated for lymphatic cancer couple of years ago – late vice president Jose de Alencar and even Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo. When Venezuela leader Hugo Chávez was diagnosed with the disease the media also speculated he was going to receive treatment at the hospital.

Later, Chavez decided to get treatment at long time partner Cuba.

Over the weekend social networks were flooded with messages of support for former president and smoker as discussion over his treatment caused clashes amongst users.

Many posted messages on Facebook or Twitter saying Lula should be treated in SUS facility as others said it serves no purpose as he would take the place of someone who can’t afford treatment.

Created in 1988 so Brazilians would have equal access to the health system, the SUS has become since a target of jokes and complaints as reports of negligence started to surface and the infamous waiting line for treatment at the SUS became a Brazilian legend.

With a red arrow pointing at the facebook user a banner was posted in thousands of Facebook walls supporting the former president. “This person sees no irony or joke in a cancer announcement. I wish the best to all cancer patients treated at the SUS or any private facility and to Lula.” Others launched the campaign “Lula, get treated at the SUS!"

Journalists reacted to the social media frenzy over Lula’s treatment with surprise. Folha de Sao Paulo journalist and editorial counsel member Gilberto Dimenstein took to his column his embarrassment over the response to the cancer news. “I felt a mix of embarrassment and discomfort as I received thousands of comments on my column about Lula’s cancer,” he said in a column entitled “ Lula’s cancer got me embarrassed.”

“I received hundreds of mails stating Lula shouldn’t be treated in an elite hospital, but in a SUS one to supposedly show solidarity with the poor. It is just immensely stupid. What can provoke that amount of hate in this minority?”

Dimenstein, a senior member of a newspaper that has lashed out at Lula’s government for most of his administration, recognized Lula invested as no one did before in social chances and demonstrated preoccupation over the social networks advance. “ I suspect the democratic interaction of the social networks is both a journalistic improvement and a shortcut to the sewers of resentment and ignorance,” he said.

Alexandre Secco, another Brazilian journalist, said in his blog the Political Observer that “Lula has cancer, and Brazilians sclerosis.”

“The ones commenting on Lula’s cancer are unaware of what means to have this kind of personal drama. Lula has cancer and, judging for some reactions, Brazilians have gone mad, collective sclerosis.”