As capacidades estatais do governo do estado do Rio Grande do Norte no contexto da pandemia da Covid-19: um olhar sobre a dimensão burocrática da política de saúde

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, is considered by the World Health Organization to be the biggest global health crisis of the 21st century. Brazil stood out in the global context for having one of the highest percentages of confirmed cases and deaths due to the disease. This scenario resulted in a series of inter-federative conflicts, caused by the Union's decision not to act as a coordinating entity, which created an overload for states and municipalities. Given this, this dissertation aims to understand the bureaucratic capacity of the Government of the state of Rio Grande do Norte for the management of health policy, during the Covid-19 pandemic (2020-2023), using Souza (2018) as a theoretical basis-methodological approach to guide the research. Based on the general objective, three specific objectives were proposed: a) contextualize health policy in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, especially in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic; b) identify the profile of the professional bureaucracy of the State Government of Rio Grande do Norte; and c) understand the managers' perception of the bureaucratic capacity that the Rio Grande do Norte State Department of Public Health had to implement health policy during the Covid-19 pandemic period. To this end, it is constituted as a case study that encompasses the qualitative research method, adopting information from government studies such as the State Basic Information Survey, from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, and the State Management Effectiveness Index, the Court of Auditors of the State of Rio Grande do Norte; as well as through semi-structured interviews with state health managers. This research showed that the bureaucratic conditions for managing health policy were precarious and insufficient in terms of structural, human and financial resources available to meet the demand caused by the pandemic crisis. This reinforces the need for the three spheres of government to transcend their political-partisan differences, establish a transparent and collaborative communication route, and increase investment in greater hiring and qualification of civil servants, thus aiming to guarantee the provision of efficient public policies.