Deadlocks in the process of health regionalization: local plots

Abstract

Regionalization of the public health system aims to encourage and enhance efforts and measures involving the organization of local and regional public health, through coordinating all those involved. The barriers that often hinder the process of regionalization are linked to tensions and conflicts between objectives, integration and political factors. This article intends to reflect on the process of regionalization from an administrative and political point of view, highlighting issues of local autonomy due to the process of municipalization. In other words, if the process of municipalizing the health system in the last few decades has strengthened political autonomy in the cities, the proposal to rationalize the services structure by regionalization follows a more administrative logic. But as can be seen in the in the Greater ABC region of São Paulo, for example, the political side of this process will impose itself, one way or another, especially when each city tries to defend their own interests.