Psychiatric reform in the SUS and the struggle for a society without asylums.

Paulo Amarante,Mônica de Oliveira Nunes

doi:10.1590/1413-81232018236.07082018

Abstract

T This article presents a historical and epistemological study of the construction of public policies about mental health and psychosocial care in Brazil´s Unified Health System, the SUS. To that end, it proposes an approach that identifies actions and strategies related to social participation in the construction of policies, one of the founding principles of SUS, seeking to delineate its importance in the specific trajectory of the psychiatric reform process. Subsequently, it highlights the originality and importance of actions that used culture as a means and as an end, in the sense of not restricting psychiatric reform to a transformation limited to public services or health in the strict sense of the term, emphasizing the principle of construction of a new locus in society for madness. Finally, it provides a historical follow-up of the promulgation of mental health policies in Brazil, identifying the most important initiatives and their impacts on the transformation of the care model, and concludes by questioning the conservative restructuring that is currently taking place.

Highlights

Mental health (MH) and psychosocial care (PC) policies in the SUS (Sistema Único de Saúde, Unified Health System) are directly related to the idea-proposal-design-movement-process[1] of health reform taking into account the situation of the democratic transition and, the construction of a democratic state itself
As the result of a letter sent to the Minister of Health with complaints and claims, 260 professionals were laid off, unleashing a new complaints process, demonstrations and articles published in the press for several months
In the early 1980s, with the financial crisis in Social Security (SS), there were proposals for reshaping medical care in this context, and in the health arena, and many of the MTSM participants were involved in these processes, and, as a result of the political changes, especially with the New Republic, there was the convening of the historic 8th National Health Conference, which revolutionized the form of social participation in public policy development[10]

Summary

Introduction

Mental health (MH) and psychosocial care (PC) policies in the SUS (Sistema Único de Saúde, Unified Health System) are directly related to the idea-proposal-design-movement-process[1] of health reform taking into account the situation of the democratic transition and, the construction of a democratic state itself.

Results

Conclusion