Access barriers: Analysis based on the perception of Street Clinic workers

Abstract

The present study aimed at understanding the access barriers of homeless people (HP) in Belo Horizonte city to health services as well as to analyze the employed care strategies from the Belo Horizonte Consultório na Rua (eCR), street clinics’ team view. We report a qualitative study by means of semi structured interviews with 10 workers from two eCR. The investigated HP face protocol and symbolic discriminatory barriers that hamper and impede their rights of access to the health system, besides the Brazil Unified Health System (SUS) equity guidelines. These barriers are related to the social exclusion process to what the homeless people are submitted, marked by multiple and overlapping violences, restricted access to basic rights thatare escalated when the use of drugs is reported. Among the strategies to overcome the access barriers are the need to qualify public data on HP, institutional dialogues on the HP access to the SUS, a more permanent education attitudes to demystify thoughts and prejudices, the need to elaborate different flows that take into account the HP’s ways of life, the need of outgoing primary care actions that promote inclusion of the Belo Horizonte HP, as well as strategies that strengthen them with active social participation.