Medicina tradicional: as plantas medicinais no contexto de vida e trabalho dos agentes comunitários de saúde do município de Juiz de Fora

Abstract

Brazilian traditional medicine has its origins on the native indigenous people, and after the coexistence of different ethnicities, during the Colonial period, therapeutic practices and resources considered official and traditional were used together in a hybrid form. Considering the development and institutionalization of biomedicine, after the 19thcentury, traditional methods in health care started to be criminalized. Meanwhile, the creation of newer and more effective technological resources in health systems led to an emptiness on interpersonal relationship between health care professionals and users. Primary Health Care (APS) has been studied as a proposal to this emptiness and fragmentation of current health care systems. In that terms, Brazil has been working on this method in the past two decades by using Family Health Strategy (ESF) as a way to organize APSs, by implementing a multi-professional team and strengthening bonds with local communities, which creates a network of correlations, providing more technological possibilities in order to increase the effectiveness of the health care system. Traditional medicine and use of medicinal plants from the local community are some of these possibilities, which are also part of the reality of the Community Health Care Agents (ACS), who belong to the local community and are members of the family health care team, making them a natural bond between these two worlds. Therefore, the aim of this work is to analyze and discuss the use and indication of use of medicinal plants by ACSs from the city of Juiz de Fora during their working process. Firstly, we made a comprehensive literature review in order to identify the main characteristics of the ACSs as a health care professional and their work environment, regarding traditional medicine. Then, we performed a cross-sectional study using a sample represented by the ACSs who work in Juiz de Fora, in order to evidence the current state of knowledge and use of medicinal plants, both in familiar and professional scopes. Finally, we conclude that in the current days, the ACS is the most skilled professional, inside the Family Health Strategy, to make use of traditional and community resources for health care purpose. However, their prospective activity needs to be included and executed inside the health care team, not only on the perspective of adding knowledge, but in the sense of transformation of the team and its working process with traditional medicine.