EXPRESSÕES DO PODER LOCAL NA MATERIALIZAÇÃO DAS CONFERÊNCIAS MUNICIPAIS DE SAÚDE DE PONTA GROSSA – 2009 E 2011

Abstract

The Local Power is a concept that includes the power relations established at a localized level, in order to consider the citizens that compose them, whether they stemmed from Civil Society or Politic Society, interested in the benefits that the influence of this Local Power can generate. The materialization process, in Municipal Health Secretary (MHS)’s plans, of the strategic actions presents in the final reports of the Health Conferences, is an indicative of the corresponding Local Power performance, by checking the correspondence of interests between the administrative and the participative bodies. This research has, in this sense, the objective of understanding the expressions of Local Power, through the analysis of the mentioned materialization process, considering the expansion of the Participatory Democracy instances in municipal health policy. Therefore, the research was conducted by a quantitative and qualitative study of case, guided by Marxian method (from abstract concrete to thought concrete), focusing on the Municipal Health Conferences of Ponta Grossa (MHCPG)’s final reports strategic actions’ materialization, in the years 2009 and 2011. The analysis’ quantitative dimension was achieved by organizing and coding the material, in order to extract from the documents the presence of delegates in the MHCPGs, and the rates of strategic actions present in the final reports of MHCPG’ materialization in MHS government plans. After achieving those results, we moved to the analysis’ qualitative dimension, in which four significant subjects of this process were interviewed, in order to understand their experiences and perceptions of it, which enabled us to compare them with quantitative data, normative regulations and related researches. As a result of the field research, we consider that the performance of the Local Power (in the materialization process examined) does not occur from a collective thought among the segments that compose it. Internally the MHCPGs, the Local Power participation is reduced and little trained, with unequal power relations, that result in a little purpose final report, without coordination with the local public health administrative management. This, in turn, represented by HMS, disregards the majority of the strategic actions present in the MHCPG’s reports, acting in a bureaucratic way, causing that, between 2009 and 2011, the demands required by the examined MHCPGs would configure similarly, highlighting the repeated needs in the Ponta Grossa’s health sector.