Performance of the National Health Council in the face of the covid-19 pandemic: a documentary analysis

Abstract

Introduction: The legislation of the Unified Health System grants the Health Councils, as deliberative collegiate bodies, the competence to supervise health actions and deliberate on topics of interest to health management and social control. Objective: To analyze the performance of the National Health Council in coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. Methodology: This is a documentary analysis, with a descriptive nature and a qualitative approach, carried out between October and November 2021. The normative acts were retrieved from the website of the National Health Council and analyzed in the light of the theoretical-methodological framework of Content Analysis. Results: Among 86 normative acts issued by the National Health Council, 20 were included in the study because they were directly related to measures to cope with the public health emergency of international importance caused by the SARS-COV-2 virus. Based on the content and thematic approaches of the selected documents, they were organized into three categories: Health Care; Budget and Financial Management; and Health and Safety in Health Services. Conclusions: Despite the non-compliance with the issue of resolutions, an instrument with greater power of linking to the act of the health manager, restricting the issuing of recommendations, the National Health Council has developed its institutional and political role, necessary in the current situation, mainly in a scenario that over the last few years has been mitigating the legitimacy of spaces for social control and participation in Brazil.

Keywords: Enacted Statutes; Social Control; COVID-19; Health Management.