Public Health Consortia as an arrengement to the federative relation and the process of regionalization

Abstract

The federative relationship and regionalization are relevant dimensions to the organization of cooperation arrangements in the development of the territories, allowing for the strengthening of federalism, respecting the municipal autonomy and point out to the establishment of independence relations between these managers. In this sense, the public health consortia is positioned as a strategic tool. Throughout the history of federalism in Brazil, these arrangements were foreseen in the Brazilian constitutions, but occupied spaces of little prominence regarding the territorial and political organization in the country. Considering this scenario, a qualitative study was developed, with an exploratory and investigative dimension, which had as main subjects the actor from municipal health management on the scope of a region, as well as representatives of state management, consortia and Ministry of Health. The study site was the health area of the Middle Paranapanema, in the northern macroregion of Paraná. Data collection was done through interviews and focus groups in the first quarter of 2017, with semi-structured scripts and the analysis methodology adopted was the discourse analysis. The results of the present study show that, after Federal Decree 7508/2011, new perspectives for strengthening regionalization emerge, in which public health consortia can be configured with an innovative role in the list of territorial priorities of the health, regional decision-making and the construction of a collective identity in the midst of the needs of the entities.