Organization of Primary Health Care in a remote rural municipality in northern Brazil

ABSTRACT

The aim of the article was to characterize the organization of Primary Health Care (APS) and its interfaces with other services in the healthcare network in a Remote Rural Municipality (MRR). A single case study was carried out in Assis Brasil (AC), through interviews with users, managers and health professionals. The results indicated an unequal distribution of health facilities with uncovered areas; access difficulties due to weather conditions; economic barriers to costing transport; promotion of itinerant actions in rural areas; discontinuity and insufficiency of medications; difficulties in retaining professionals; scarcity of technological resources; lack of internet access; need for cultural adaptation; concentration of specialized services of the Unified Health System (SUS) in the capital. Local management efforts were identified to maintain the Family Health Strategy (ESF) and the adequacy of work processes to meet the large flow of spontaneous demand, foreigners and the indigenous population. It is argued that the MRR and its populations add economic, social and access to health services vulnerabilities, partially covered by national policies, and that the municipal entity, without sufficient support and allocation of state and federal resources, maintains possible arrangements for the provision of APS, not always bound by the comprehensive principles of the ESF.

KEYWORDS
Primary Health Care; Healthcare access; Rural population health; Amazon ecosystem; Brazil