UM FANTASMA RONDA O SERVIÇO SOCIAL: expressões do conservadorismo reacionário nas demandas em saúde durante a pandemia de COVID-19 no Maranhão (2020-2022)

Abstract

The COVID-19 Pandemic has imposed major challenges on health systems and professionals around the world. In Brazil, the Unified Health System (SUS) was the State's main response to demands, even after decades of attacks perpetrated by the neoliberal counter-reform implemented in the Brazilian State more strongly from the 1990s, an expression of the capitalist project of society and social policy. The parliamentary-juridical-military and media coup of 2016 is a historic milestone of an ultraliberal uprising of a conservative-reactionary character that hit Brazil in the wake of the resurgence of conservatism in the world. The pandemic highlighted and intensified this dynamic in the country. There were social workers among the professionals summoned to the front line of the fight against the pandemic, a category guided by an Ethical-Political Project contrary to the capitalist logic of society. In this context, the work of the Inspection and Guidance Commissions of the Regional Social Service Councils gains strategic importance, which guide and supervise professional practice in the perspective of defending the Ethical-Political Project of the category. The study of these phenomena is opportune and of great social relevance, as well as of special political and scientific importance for Social Work, for Health Policy, for SUS users, as well as for the scientific community represented by the Public Policies Postgraduate Program at the Federal University of Maranhão. The objective of this research is to analyze the expressions of the intensification of reactionary conservatism in Brazil on the demands directed to social workers in Maranhão during the COVID-19 Pandemic (2019-2022). It is exploratory research, with a qualitative approach with quantitative elements, carried out at the Guidance and Inspection Commission of CRESS/MA. Fiscal members of this Commission were participants in the study. For data collection, semi-structured interviews were carried out between 01/23/2023 and 01/27/2023. The research had its own funding.