The effectiveness of the law of special priority in relation to judicial health demands in the 2nd. Instance of the Rio de Janeiro State Court of Justice

Abstract Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of the law of special priority regarding the processing of lawsuits about health demands in the 2nd Instance of the Court of Justice of the State of Rio Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. Method A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out on the lawsuits referring to old people judged from August 2017 to July 2018. The data were accessed from the court’s website. The effectiveness of the law was assessed considering: request of priority, citation of the law in the judicial decision and/or if the median time of duration of lawsuits was shorter for octogenarians than for the others. Results A total of 990 lawsuits were identified, but only 72 eligible (7.3%). The main defendant was the health plan (76.4%). The predominant demand was home care service (31.9%). There was a request and decision of priority for old people (86.1%), but none for special priority, no difference was observed too in the review time of the lawsuit between the octogenarians and of the other old people (p≥0.650). Conclusion The law of special priority still has no legal effectiveness in the lawsuits to exercise the right to health in Rio de Janeiro.