O papel do trabalho na redução da distância entre os serviços da saúde mental e da saúde do trabalhador

Abstract

The present thesis investigates the role of the category "work" in reducing the gap between some SUS unities in Betim, focusing especially on one of the Reference Centers for Mental Health (CERSAM) and on the Reference Center for Occupational Health (CEREST). By means of four case studies regarding users of these services, interviews with professionals, participations in team meetings, and gathering document data, we have identified some of the possible causes for the existing abyss between the fields of Mental Health and Occupational Health in the district. Furthermore, some of the strategies that have allowed for an approximation between the two fields have also been investigated. Concerning the causes for the abyss and the elements that hinder the relationship between the two units, the data points to some features related to the origin of each of those units; to the conception held by other health professionals regarding each one of the units, in which the CEREST is usually associated with social security and the CERSAM is seen as the sole entity responsible for treatment of the afflicted by mental maladies; to the specificity of the target-user of each unit; to the logic that orients these services, considering that CERSAM excels in caring for individual clinical cases, while CEREST conducts its activity according to the Collective Health perspective; to the theoretical basis that informs the practices of professionals from each one of these services. The view in which work is seen as a source of well-being is common to both units and thereby represents a possibility of approximation between them. It has also been observed that in the very work performed in the units there are "germs" which point towards a stronger interaction between the units in question. Let us stress that in this process the integration of the category "work" can bring progress, all the more so because it presupposes the overcoming of the individual/society dichotomy and therefore enables one to contemplate both the collective dimension and the singular aspects of the health/sickness processes.