O cuidado em saúde de mulheres em situação de rua em Fortaleza: um estudo de caso.

Abstract

This research presents an investigation process about the health care of homeless women in the city of Fortaleza. This investigation emerged from the (mis) paths taken in readings, conversations in the orientations, with social care professionals and with the people who live on the streets that pointed us to the ways of life of homeless women. According to the I National Census and Survey 2009, 35.54% of women said they had health problems. The most cited health problems were: “psychiatric” order suffering (9%), hypertension (8.3%), diabetes (8.3%), vision/blindness problems (5.1%) and AIDS (5,1%) and more than half of women chose to bathe in places with privacy. In this regard, the research aims to know practices that are present in the daily lives of women who live in the streets of Fortaleza and as specific objectives: to identify these women's health care practices and to follow the networks embedded in possible care practices. It is worth mentioning that the health care of people who live on the streets was institutionalized from the emergence of practices that brought visibility to the demands of the homeless people, such as the “street offices” that in mid-2011/2012 became “offices on the street”, based on the regulation of the Primary Care Policy (PNAB) by ordinances 122 and 123/2012. However, before that, health demands of this public were addressed only to the Tertiary Attention (Santa Casa de Misericórdia Hospital) and philanthropic institutions. Only in 2004, with the advent of the Social Assistance Policy, demands related to housing and work were institutionalized. We are inspired by the discursive practices proposed by Foucault, which are used in NUCED/UFC studies and researches. The “Case Study” modality was used as a way to single out the life stories of the two interlocutors who composed the research. Therefore, the analysis of the two case studies was produced through the “dialogic maps” of the sequential narrative interviews that we conducted with the two women and we used two categories “daily life on the street” and “health care”. Finally, we understand that health care in the everyday life of the street is done through friendship networks, because it goes beyond the conventional models of institutional clinical protocols and, in a certain way, homeless people are more free in their health care practices, since they do not depend exclusively on traditional clinical models. The focus of this research is to propose a Psychology that produces health care in the street scenario and contributes to public policies that deal with homeless people. Meeting with homeless women has had an effect on them and on researchers, producing ways of practicing Psychology believing in their power of life.