Processo de construção dos núcleos de apoio à saúde da família (NASF) na atenção básica do estado do Ceará

Abstract

This work aims to evaluate the construction of the Family Health Support Nuclei (FHSN) in the Primary Care in three cities of Ceará (Brazil): Fortaleza, Sobral and Crato. The FHSN, created in 2008, are multi-professional teams that act together with the Family Health Strategy (FHS) teams, supporting their health interventions in specific territories. This research was developed as a qualitative evaluation, consisting in four months of participant observation, 31 interviews (totaling 70 participants) and six focus groups. The data obtained was analyzed from critical and interpretative frameworks. The results retrospectively describe: the process of the FHSN professional’s entrance in the FHS; the challenges faced by professionals when initially developing their work processes; the elements composing the policy’s implementation background, involving structure and both material and non-material resources. The discussion of those aspects presents a reality beyond the policy’s normativeness, because it echoes experiences and personal reflections of the subjects involved in the proposal’s implementation. In this sense, the participants revealed the relationship between instituted/possible, showing appropriation of FHSN’s main elements in the empiric/operational dimension. Also, they stressed the conflicts and contradictions that emerged from entering this new program, revealing an abrupt and uncared entrance in a place where the roles and powers where, in a sense, already determined. Some interesting aspects also aroused from the complex intersubjective relationship developed in the attempts of collectively arranging work processes, unveiling invisibility processes in a “non-place” environment. Finally, we consider that FHSN as a policy has been influenced by several local contingencies, situation that makes the juridical-normative system that supports the proposal insufficient to ensure success when implementing those new teams. We emphasize the necessity of further reflection upon the FHSN proposal, in addition of structural subsidies and permanent education to all professionals involved in the construction of this new policy.