Relações e condições de trabalho dos/as agentes comunitários de saúde em um município do seridó potiguar

Abstract

The community health agents are professionals who compose the family health strategy teams to implement the policy in Primary Health Care. They have an important role in the development of health work, because they are the team members who work directly with the population, enabling the service-Community process. They constitute an expressive professional category for society and in view of the perspective of attention foreseen in the SUS, with a model centered on promotion, prevention, education and health rehabilitation, the work of ACS in the territories reveals to be of fundamental importance. Despite this importance, the new arrangements and management modes based on productivity, in computerization have engendered significant changes to the world of work, with great consequences for the working class. In view of this scenario of mutations, the aim of the present study was to investigate the conditions and work relations of community health agents, in a medium-sized municipality, located in the Seridó region, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, analyzing the effects and consequences of the work process about the life and health of this worker. Thus, this research is a social study circumscribed in the dialectical perspective, exploratory and descriptive level, developed through a qualitative methodological approach. The study population was represented by 19 ACS's, of both sexes, belonging to the 04 Health Units, located in the urban area of the municipality of Currais Novos/RN. A bibliographic and documentary research was carried out, as still field research, where the privileged instruments were the participant observation and the semi-structured interview. The analyses focused on working conditions and relationships; The dynamics and activities that compose the professional routines; the main complaints concerning the exercise of the profession; Possible health commitments, arising from or not of the work activity developed by these workers. Among the conclusions we highlight: the working conditions for the exercise of the function are insufficient or precarious, with reflections on the development of health work; despite reports of good understanding, social relations are pervaded by conflicts in the labor routine. Moreover, it was identified that the conditions and labor relations have produced repercussions in the life of community health agents, among the consequences the illness of the professional.