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Abstract
The research problem concerns the public health assistencialization in Argentina.
The general hypothesis that guides the paper, argues that assistance logic is
constitutive of public health devices and, in the context of neoliberal
governmentality, there occurs a phenomenon of re-assistencialization of public
health, namely that while assistance logic permeates all social interventions of the
state, in the case of public health care component overprints the historically
present in its operation.
Since the Primary Health Care in Rosario City Hall is a paradigm for analyzing
this phenomenon, this research describes the process by which public health
played, in the city of Rosario in last decade, an assistance function and emerged as
the privileged mode of government of poverty, such as differential management
for certain stocks built as poor.
Empirical evidence shows that the Primary Health Care operated as the main
means of territorial movement, supported on the notions of decentralization and
social participation, identifying and defining population sectors that require
specific attention, all of which showed a tendency to treat localized problems. At
the same time, there develops a tendency to medicalization of assistance, which
can be seen, first, through specific practices rooted in notions of prevention,
promotion and comprehensiveness of health. Another dimension that accounts for
this trend is given by the scheme budget and the constitution of the Municipal
Social Spending, where public health budget becomes a clear priority. Finally, this
trend is reinforced by the increasing incorporation of social work professionals,
not only for tasks traditionally assigned to these agents -linked to the so-called
“direct assistance”- but also for middle management positions and center.
The research results can withdraw assistance from its residual and subsidiary
status, to position it in the center of attention, as a cross to the various forms of
social intervention by the State.
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