Democracy should work towards satisfying diverse interests (for the common good), which is indispensable for establishing consensuses between the various stakeholders whenever possible. Since the mid-1970s, Brazil has undergone important political and democratic changes, making this a period of fundamental transformation in the country's health paradigms. With the 1988 Constitution and the creation of the Unified National Health System (SUS), health system administrators, workers, and patients are dealing with a new way of conceiving, organizing, developing, and producing healthcare services, namely the social healthcare production model. However, to promote a real break with the previous Flexnerian health model, labor relations must overcome the flexibilization (casualization) of health work through such measures as consistent investments in human resources management, with the creation of means for discussing democratic administration. The current article aims to rethink the relations between democracy and health, reflecting analytically on the work management practices in the Family Health Program (FHP) in the context of policy reforms. Consolidation of the FHP as the key element for reorganizing primary healthcare in Brazil will allow shaping new institutional arrangements, capable of impacting the country's sociopolitical culture, thereby contributing to fairer and more effective policies with solidarity, as proposed under the National Health System.
Democracy; Health manpower; Health systems; Single Health System; Family Health Program