A prática profissional do Assistente Social no cuidado à saúde do usuário na atenção básica do Disa Leste de Manaus

Abstract

Social Service is a profession created primarily to intervene in expressions of social subjects in capitalist societies, such as Brazil, and it had been inserted in the field of health in since its beginning. The professional daily life in health and other socio-occupational spaces enables the construction of a new knowledge that allows professional responses to the reality of those who are in need of the service. And within the contradictory context of inequalities and the reduction of the State through public policies to the population, these professionals face challenges in their professional practice, although health is a universal right and a duty of the State. So bearing these facts in mind, we problematize, before the expressions of the social questions, demands by the population to the State, such as: what attributions and competences are required to the social worker? In order to find answers, we aimed to analyse the attributions and competences of the social worker in the health care of the primary care user in the East Health District (DISA Leste) in the city of Manaus and we had the following specific objectives: a) to detect the vision of social workers about their health training in undergraduate and / or continuing education; b) to verify how social workers use the attributions and competences of their training by the Federal Council of Social Service / Regional Council of Social service parameters in their professional practice; c) to study how the social workers perform their professional practice with the health team in basic care. The sample consisted of eight social workers working in DISA Leste's basic health units. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using the content analysis technique. This analysis enabled us to list the following results. In health education during graduation, most of the professionals had complementary disciplines, internships and lectures, in which the elements of health policy and their socio-historical context were identified, but they reported that when they entered, they experienced difficulties in the specific routine regarding social determinants in health. In the relationship with institutions, the social worker is recognized as a professional who has a routine of guaranteeing rights, but the professional practices do not extrapolate the institutional demands. In the relationship with service users, they often act in the health education process, but in the aspect of the mobilization of social control there is a gap in the articulation of collegiate spaces, as well as actions that enhance this type of participation. In professional relationships in health staff, there are still limitations in the methodological aspect to build care lines that extrapolate professional contacts and become planned spaces and interprofessional decision. In this way, we can consider that these elements allow affirming that the social worker must continually exercise the critical capacity in the face of the contradictory and dynamic reality of society and its professional locus. Thus, it requires a theoretical, political and ethical support in construction.