Barriers to social participation of workers’ representatives in the municipal council of health

Abstract

The Municipal Council of Health is a collegiate body of social participation in the field of public health policies. Representative and deliberative council is made up of users, workers and managers in the health sector at the municipal level. This article aims to describe and analyze the participation of health workers segment in the Municipal Health Council of Guarulhos, São Paulo, Brazil. The approach was qualitative and the data were collected through documentary analysis observation of Council meetings and semi-structured interviews. As a result, it was found that members of the city council do not identify clearly the representatives of the segment of workers and unaware of the role of this segment and have an expectation of the scientific-technical role to be played by them. In the municipality of Guarulhos, the worker segment makes up with the segment managers a group called “health promoters”. It was observed that this contributed to the dilution of its role, highlighting the barriers and obstacles to the effective participation of civil society in decisions relating to local health policies. Distortions in representation of the segments that compose the council contribute to accentuate the barriers and obstacles to the effective participation of civil society in decisions about local health policies.