PSF (Programa de Saúde da Família - Family Health Program) is a strategy aimed at reorganizing public primary care in Brazil. The program is quickly expanding its population coverage and increasing the number of hired professionals. Its focus lies in changing its work process by implementing technological and organizational alterations aimed at increasing effectiveness of actions in the context of primary care, thus posing new challenges to health-care professionals. In this study we seek to understand the relation between work processes, health and subjectivation in the context of the Family Health Program in a Primary Care Unit of the Unified Health System, the Brazilian public health system, in the South of the country, from the perspective of activity. We detected some gaps between PSF prescriptive tasks and the actual work situation, which motivated professionals to struggle for their health by (re)defining their working methods. Since this managerial system was adopted by the health unit, work process turned into a potential area for the development of inventiveness, which allowed joining efficiency and creativity, and helped strengthen their health gains.
Public Health System; Primary Care Unit; Family Health Program; work activity; workers´ health; regulative activity