Challenges and strategies in the management of Basic Health Units

Abstract

This paper discusses the findings of a research that tried to elucidate the experience lived by managers of Basic Health Units (BHU) with a perspective to contribute with health managerial development. The methodology used in the  research was phenomenology and hermeneutic and the history collections were held through a deep interview. When they became managers, they faced an intense, varied and fragmented routine and they were astonished by institutional priorities that prevented their agenda implementations. Highly dependent on other sectors, they needed to organize a wide relationship network inside and outside the institution. Standing tensions, solving problems, and overcoming challenges, they reviewed their concepts and passed through a conscious changing process that made them think and act as managers. Being a BHU manager meant, for each of them, being a changing agent, working under a high pressure environment and with low autonomy, leading transformation processes in his/her unit, due to the community where he/she is inserted.