Misdiagnosis subsidizes a package of reforms that undetermines the Family Health Strategy

Abstract

This essay addresses a diagnosis made by the federal government about the Family Health Strategy (FHS). This diagnosis supported a reform package implemented by the Ministry of Health, in this context, in 2019. Technical errors related to the diagnosis are highlighted which, aligned with World Bank proposals, disregard the positive results achieved by the FHS, in the field of primary care, achieved in the first fifteen years of the 20th century. Attention is drawn to the fact that the diagnosis cannot be sustained in view of the recognized importance of family health teams in facing the current pandemic caused by the Coronavirus.

Possible alternatives are explored to resume the development process of Primary Care in Brazil. Challenges related to a still unfinished health reform process are also reported - an issue invisible in that diagnosis - whose apprehension, however, is fundamental for the establishment of strategies aimed at the improvement and consolidation of primary care in the Brazilian reality.