Abstract

OLARTE-SIERRA, María Fernanda; SUAREZ, Roberto  and  RUBIO, María Alejandra. Pediatric cardiology health brigades: from medical triage to social triage. Salud colect. [online]. 2018, vol.14, n.3, pp.531-544. ISSN 1669-2381.  http://dx.doi.org/10.18294/sc.2018.1789.

This article explores the sociocultural aspects of a program of pediatric cardiology health brigades that provides care to children from low-income populations in peripheral regions of Colombia. We analyzed the brigades as a humanitarian strategy to close the gaps of inequity in access to health care, and as a particular context of the medical encounter, the experience of heart disease and the definition of care trajectories. Based on ethnographic observation of brigades and interviews with families receiving care and with health personnel, carried out in 2016 in five different cities, we looked at the dynamics that shape the medical encounter and questioned the mechanisms (medical and social) through which it is evaluated and decided which families can access care in Bogota. We conclude that the brigades, as initiatives that continue to be anchored in humanitarism instead of contributing to the transformation of the conditions that generate health inequities, reproduce and exacerbate such inequities by selecting which lives receive priority to be saved.

Keywords : Health Services Accessibility; Delivery of Health Care; Social Work; Vulnerable Populations; Colombia.

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