The process of implementing dental care within the Family Health Care Program in Belo Horizonte/MG

a qualitative study based on the perception of the Oral Healthcare Coordination Team and Dental Surgeons from the Family Health Care Program

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to investigate the procedures aimed at establishing the oral healthcare policy in the context of BH for Life’s Family Health Care Program (FHCP), from the point of view of a group of professionals from the Oral Health Coordination Team as well as from dental surgeons from the government’s Family Health Care Teams in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The qualitative research methodology was employed as it is the most suitable approach when studying human behaviors and concepts. The work was carried out by conducting interviews with eight dental surgeons and eight oral healthcare coordination members. From this work, it was found that a comprehensive debate concerning the proposal for the implementation of the BH for Life FHCP, especially as regards the dental surgeons that deal directly with the health service beneficiaries, thus revealing a contradiction between what was proposed and what had in fact been implemented. The oral healthcare team was unable to effectively join with their Family Health Care counterparts, which would be necessary for the development of interdisciplinary health care actions. In this light, BH for Life’s potential to produce enhanced changes in the social assistance model was negatively affected. The oral healthcare team’s work process failed to demonstrate impacting changes, as it is based solely on the curative treatment framework. Unfortunately, the same dental care access barriers remain due to restrained demand and especially to the minimal changes achieved in the healthcare teams’ work process. It can be concluded that there is a need to revise the implementation of the BH for Life program so as to correct the aforementioned problems and guarantee the program’s effectiveness.