Introduction
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has led to profound changes in our lives, imposing a series of challenges to the Unified Health Care System (SUS) and Desiderata Institute. We spent 2020 with the whole team working remotely and reorganized our activities to strengthen the health care system in the current scenario. At the same time, we re-evaluated our actions in the pediatric oncology and childhood obesity programmatic areas.
We took advantage of our collaboration history with public administrators and hospitals to join the União Rio Movement’s managing committee. This involved leading the technical validation, negotiation, procurement, and distribution of personal protective equipment (PPEs) for health workers in Rio de Janeiro public hospitals. Furthermore, we supported pediatric hospitals that admitted children with Covid-19. We also converted our face-to-face activities into online events and shared relevant content with caregivers and health professionals, correlating childhood cancer and childhood obesity with Covid-19.
Childhood obesity also gained relevance in this pandemic context. Children are at home more often and a significant number of them no longer have access to school meals and are more prone to sedentary behavior, since social distancing has increased their screen time. As a result, we carried out our first widespread campaign, presenting numbers and facts that prove that obesity in children and adolescents is a public health issue, not an individual one. For the first time, we signed an international partnership to implement advocacy strategies aimed at strengthening legislation on healthy environments for children and adolescents.
Bearing in mind how difficult it is to have a new routine imposed on us, and how painful the pandemic has been for thousands of families, I would like to present our 2020 activities and results. These have been achieved alongside our active advisors, partners, and a qualified team committed to improving public health care, especially for children and adolescents.
Good read!
Roberta Costa Marques | Executive Director
