Avaliação das autuações da vigilância sanitária municipal em serviços de alimentação de Natal-RN

Abstract

Introduction: The actions of the Health Surveillance go through all the areas of performance of the Nutritionist. In addition to a public health action aimed at risk prevention and control, health protection and health promotion, its regulatory nature presupposes supervisory action through the exercise of police power, as a typical state activity, which limits rights and freedoms in favor of public interest in the light of legal precepts. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the assessments of municipal sanitary surveillance in food services in Natal-RN. Methodology: Through online consultation with the Official Gazette of the Municipality, we obtained the decisions of the Surveillance Administrative Proceedings generated by infraction notices drawn up in food services and published from 2012 to 2018. Results and discussion: No decisions were published in the years 2012, 2013 and 2014. Advertising is fundamental for controlling the fairness of acts and is one of the Principles of Public Administration, which has a duty of transparency towards the population, so acts should be published by through the official press. Of the 604 Health Administrative Proceedings analyzed, the highest-rated category was 'restaurants and similar' (26%) in 2015 and 2016, while 'supermarkets, markets and similar' (34%) was the highest-rated in 2017 and 2018. In this 4-year period, the most commonly applied penalty was 'warning' (40%) and then 'fine' (21%). Conclusion: The data from the present study may be indicative of an improvement in the supervision and performance of the Municipal Health Surveillance of Natal-RN, as well as a setback of the food services regarding the Good Manipulation Practices. It is necessary to investigate the motivations of the records and whether or not to maintain the proportion found between the fine and warning penalties.