Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

A aula inaugural de Tereza Ramos, proferida no início do ano letivo na Escola Politécnica de Saúde Joaquim Venâncio/Fiocruz, no Rio de Janeiro, constituiu uma autêntica lição de participação política. Agente comunitário de saúde (ACS) desde 1978, atualmente Tereza é a presidente da Confederação Nacional de Agentes Comunitários de Saúde, que reúne as federações estaduais, abrangendo dez estados brasileiros, algumas anteriores ao Programa de Agentes Comunitários de Saúde (Pacs). Nesta entrevista¹, concedida um dia antes da palestra, Tereza conta um pouco sobre a luta protagonizada pelos agentes comunitários de saúde em busca de 'desprecarização' de seu trabalho. Essa luta culminou na edição da emenda constitucional nº 51, de fevereiro de 2006, e da lei 11.350, de outubro de 2006, que regulamenta a emenda, marcos legais de amparo à profissão de agente comunitário de saúde e exemplo de exercício de cidadania de Tereza e do grupo de ACS liderado por ela. Militante histórica do setor saúde, que cruzou o caminho de Sergio Arouca na VIII Conferência Nacional de Saúde, também opina sobre a formação que os ACS vêm recebendo em curso técnico. Essa formação é considerada fundamental, junto com a 'desprecarização' dos vínculos e a regularização do acesso, para a efetiva profissionalização e reconhecimento dos direitos desses trabalhadores.

The present essay focuses on the relationship between knowledge, power and ethics. At the start of a new millennium, many are the implications of the achievements in the sciences of life, as the repercussions of these achievements have consequences for the health professionals' everyday work and bring up to date the doubts on what is or is not 'good' for the human being. In mankind's trajectory, life (of the human being, of nature and of other beings not belonging to the human species) is the motive and the objective of learning. In the biotechnological context, we ask: to what extent are we distancing ourselves from this primary motive? In seeking an answer for this question, this essay, looks, in particular, at the work of Martin Buber, Hans Jonas and Emmanuel Lévinas. Eu e Tu, O princípio da responsabilidade and Humanismo do outro homem are works in which the 'alterity' is considered to be the motive of ethics. 'The other's presence' is the basis for the ethical encounter. The encounter with that which is 'different from me' initiates the 'act of knowing' and ethics.

The purpose of this article is to present some results of a research that, by articulating the research and a training programme, analysed the relationship between health and work in the schools of Great Vitória (State of Espírito Santo). The epistemological perspective underlying the research was centred on the activity of work. Our method for the production of knowledge was implemented by building a space for a dialogue between the knowledge that results from the teachers' experience and that produced by the researchers themselves. With this objective in mind, we designed a work plan that included, in its first stage, the application of the questionnaire SRQ and, on the basis of the results obtained, the construction of a Training-Investigation Programme on Health and Work in the Schools of Great Vitória for the teachers. One of the major results of the latter was the beginning of the construction, in each school, and between the Great Vitória schools, of a network to debate about the health-work relations (being implemented through a web site) and the expansion of the research-training process to other municipalities of the State. The research results indicate the urgent need for research methods that will give priority to the teachers' experiences as indispensable knowledge for understanding the relationship health and work in schools.

The article presents some reflections about the process to regulate the training of community health agents. It briefly describes the trajectory of the occupation, from its creation to its professionalization, as well as the changes required in the organization of the service production processes and of the health workers' training. Next, it deals with the actions developed by the Ministry of Health in order to build instruments to help the training institutions to prepare programmes for the professionalization of the community health agents. Finally, it clarifies some questions raised by those actors that are responsible for proposing forms of professional training that go beyond the current ones.

This article presents a reflection concerning the organization of work in nursing in the context of the organization of work in health care. It is theoretically sustained by the historical-dialectic materialism upon human labor process and it is also based upon a critical vision about the profession concept elaborated by the sociology of professions and upon some theories in the field of administration that have been influenced nursing work. The study is based upon data obtained in six (6) field research, three (3) of which resulted in master's theses and three (3) of which resulted in doctorate dissertations. These six researches dealt with the theme of the organization of work in health and nursing, using a qualitative approach and involving the participation of diverse members of nursing team. This study conceptualizes the organization of work from both the workplace perspective and macro-social relationships. It highlights that the transformations that have occurred in the world of work have influenced the work in health care, but the organizational model of work continues influenced by the Taylor's logic of work organization. It concludes that the reality of the organization of nursing work can be changed by nursing professionals' collective action in alliance with other organized sectors of society and in accordance with the health care users' needs.

Este artigo é parte de um estudo empírico sobre as mudanças no trabalho em saúde, em função da incorporação de novas tecnologias. O estudo caracteriza-se por uma abordagem interdisciplinar e o referencial teórico que orienta a pesquisa tem como base os conceitos de reestruturação produtiva, competência e subjetividade. Tendo como foco a organização dos serviços e as novas demandas para os trabalhadores de nível médio do ponto de vista da sua qualificação, a pesquisa analisa a relação homem-trabalho na perspectiva das mudanças tecnológicas, das competências laborais, da autonomia, da comunicação e da linguagem. Os resultados do estudo indicam algumas tendências do processo de trabalho que apontam a tecnologização da assistência e do trabalho em equipe, e a necessidade do desenvolvimento profissional e de reestruturação do trabalho em saúde. Entre os desafios levantados, destacam-se a valorização do trabalho e do trabalhador, a incorporação do conceito de competência, o reconhecimento das relações subjetivas e o processo de comunicação

In a first stage, the article examines the results of a survey with individuals that were looking for a job by referral from the SINE - Brazilian Employment System - in Florianópolis - Santa Catarina, in an attempt to find out the main characteristics of their experience as unemployed. Next, analysing the meaning of unemployment within the logic of capitalist society, it concludes that the unemployed have great difficulty in selling the force of his/her labour, and, in extreme cases, are totally unable, not just to sell this labour, but to sell any other merchandise, with the consequence that they have also great difficulty in buying - or are totally unable to buy - their means of subsistence so as to produce their lives as human beings. From this it is possible to presume that the characteristics of their experience are an expression, in their everyday life, of the production of their degradation as human beings as well as of their efforts to react against this process.

Este artigo apresenta parte dos resultados de uma pesquisa com trabalhadores numa refinaria de petróleo, durante a implantação de novas tecnologias em sua planta industrial. A pesquisa buscou verificar o que estas modificações no processo de trabalho produzem na saúde dos trabalhadores. Os resultados mostraram que as novas tecnologias de automação alteram o conteúdo do trabalho, pois a máquina embute a ciência, não deixando mais transparecer o nexo causal entre a doença e a ferramenta de trabalho. Com base nos resultados, discutem-se aspectos que podem contribuir para a construção de uma nova pedagogia de educação para a saúde, que tome o trabalho como princípio educativo.