Felicidades e tristezas no trabalho em saúde indígena: um estudo com profissionais do polo base de Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brasil

Abstract

This study was made with the goal of analyzing among the reports from the indigenous health professionals from Polo Base de Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul, the ones referring to violations of the right to food and water access. It is a qualitative research that was run among 117 professionals from Polo Base de Dourados, through a semi-structured questionnaire. Two questions were analyzed in this study: “Which sadness or suffering situation from your work sticks out to you?”, and “In a few words, which satisfaction/happiness situation from your work sticks out to you?”. For the evaluation of the answers, the used method involved an attentive analysis of the answers, followed by their grouping by approximation. After that, three categories were chosen: 1. Indigenous violence; 2. Health and human rights violations; 3. Interpersonal workplace/coworker relationships. The chosen answers for the analysis belonged to category 2, specifically referring to the lack of water and food, which was seen as a big source of worry to the health professionals, specially among those assisting at Bororó Village, located inside the RID. It was noted that the issues related to water, in both sadness and happiness, were mentioned mostly by the professionals responsible for sanitation, and that although the issues related to food were also mentioned by the other workers, there was an emphasis among the indigenous health agents. Only one non-indigenous worker failed to mention either the lack of food and/or water as a sad situation. From those reports, it can be inferred that the right to water and food access described in the Federal Constitution of 1988 has nor been secured to the indigenous population, which has worse health and food safety indicators that the non-indigenous population. Because of that, it is fair to say that the government has to be pressured in order to do its job as the agent responsible for guaranteeing the rights of the indigenous population, as well as raising the visibility of the debate about land rights, and, consequently, health rights.