Constitutional Amendment n. 29: reflections about local healthcare managers' protagonism

Abstract

The present article is a reflection on the Constitutional Amendment n. 29 considering the role played by local public healthcare managers in providing counterpart funds for the public health sector. A qualitative research on official documents was carried out, followed by interviews with local healthcare managers, using a semi-structured questionnaire. Results revealed an interface between the execution process of the Constitutional Amendment n. 29 and the role played by local public healthcare managers. The Amendment is evaluated by local healthcare managers as a legal dispositive that has to be executed, although they did not go deeply into the discussion of its importance for the consolidation of the Brazilian National Health System. The approval of the Constitutional Amendment n. 29 and its subsequent legislation will not be studied in this article, considering that the focus of this work is the understanding of local public healthcare managers about this amendment and its importance within the Brazilian Unified Health System context.