Health investigates allegations of diversion of drugs to prospectors

The Ministry of Health is investigating allegations of diversion of medicines intended for the Yanomami to miners. In a letter dated the 18th, Fiocruz reports having received information that medicines for malaria are being sold by irregular miners near the indigenous reserve in the middle of the Amazon, in Roraima.

“Having Farmanguinhos delivered the entire production to the Ministry of Health”, says Fiocruz in the document, in reference to the medicine artesunate + mefloquine, “we saw the need to inform them so that measures can be taken so that the tracking of the distribution of this medication can be made and the reported fact verified”. Health professionals who have worked with indigenous people in recent years have also made reports similar to the report.

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) has already ordered an investigation into the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) administration for omissions and suspected genocide of indigenous peoples, in addition to non-compliance with court decisions that determined the strengthening of policies to care for these communities.

The garimpeiros leave Boa Vista towards the mines with the medicines in hand to sell to those who stayed in the field, according to a nurse who worked for eight years in the Yanomami indigenous land to Estadão. It is estimated that there are around 20,000 garimpeiros in the reserve – the number has exploded in recent years.

According to him, who prefers not to be identified, deviations of product boxes already occurred in the Logistics area of ​​the Indigenous Health Secretariat (Sesai), an agency linked to the Ministry of Health. In the transport of lots to the reserve, problems are also reported. “During the transfer on the aircraft, the medicine disappears”, another technician who had worked at Sesai told the report.

In the reserve, health professionals, out of fear, also end up assisting miners. This exacerbates the lack of medicine and work overload. As Estadão showed, groups linked to illegal mining dominate areas within the reserve, including airstrips and even a health unit. “There is an exchange of medicine for gold”, says Junior Hekurari, from the District Council for Indigenous Health (Condisi).

The lack of medication, as well as accusations by civil servants who negotiate with prospectors for gold, had already been raised in a public hearing, in the Chamber of Deputies, in June 2022. After questions from deputy Joenia Wapichana (Rede-RR), who chaired the commission, Paulo Teixeira de Souza Oliveira, delegate of the Federal Police, who represented the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, said that “this crime of trading gold, supposedly committed by civil servants, in exchange for food and vaccine” is being investigated.

“The information from our Roraima Superintendence is that there is an open investigation. This fact was reported by the media and this investigation is ongoing. Of course, we are going to preserve secrecy even in the interests of the useful result of the investigation. But, yes, the facts are being investigated”, said the delegate at the time. Questioned by the report, the PF did not respond until the publication of this article. The Estadão was also unable to contact Joenia, who today chairs the National Foundation for the Original Peoples (Funai).

The report also tried to contact Sesai’s new secretary, Weibe Tapeba, and former Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga, from the Jair Bolsonaro administration, but did not receive a response. On social media, Bolsonaro said that the Yanomami emergency is a “farce of the left” and stated that indigenous health was one of the priorities of his government, highlighting the performance during the covid-19 pandemic.

Political appointments hurt work, say officials

Servers reported that indigenous health has “natural” difficulties. Indigenous people are not expected to travel to basic health units for care, which requires an active search by health professionals, in unfavorable terrain and in the middle of the forest.

In the Yanomami Health District, they report, professionals are often isolated within the post. They say that the Yanomami are a warlike people, and conflicts between the indigenous people themselves can be quite violent, which corners health workers. Added to this, there is the fear of the invaders and the natives co-opted to work in the mines, who have firearms. “There are children with guns, there are teenagers with guns.”

For servers, one of the main bottlenecks is management. Although the position of health coordinator, for example, in a district requires expertise in administration, health, politics and the people with whom you are going to work, an indication is enough to fill the vacancy, which, in their view, leaves little people qualified people assume an extremely important position for assistance to indigenous people to work as expected.