A violência contra as mulheres como um problema de saúde pública: o acesso e a interface de gênero na saúde em Parintins-AM

Abstract

This study seeks to verify in what sense violence against women is seen as a public health problem in the city of Parintins, Amazonas, highlighting the access of women to public health services. Violence against women is one of the expressions of the multidimensional social question, which produces women's suffering. It is a phenomenon inscribed in socio-cultural relations that are veiled by gender inequalities, who tend to be invisibilized and naturalized in society. The research is situated within the scope of the qualitative approaches without excluding the quantitative aspects, with the use of semi-structured interview technique directed to health professionals, women militants/feminists and women who are in a situation of violence. Field observation and informal conversations were also valued in order to verify the level of effectiveness and access to the health system. The research notes the difficulties of the health sector in operationalizing the attention to women in situations of violence in a perspective of completeness, insofar as representations and professional practices still prioritize the look on the physical and psychological impacts of urgency, with few actions focused on prevention, revealing the centrality of the biomedical conception in the health area to the detriment of the humanistic-social approach in this question. The study highlights the problems that limit health care, both in terms of precarious health services, and in relation to the persistence of patriarchal relations that permeate institutional spaces, which is confronted with the requests and needs expressed by women interviewed, as well as by the militants who work to confront the problem. Among the multiple aspects found, the research points out, finally, the need to mainstream the gender perspective in the sector and to pay attention to the specificities of women in the amazon, seeking to foster expanded health actions from a horizontal, interdisciplinary, integral and intersectorial model that makes it possible to confront the violence affecting the health of women in the city of Parintins.