O/A idoso/a na política de assistência social: um estudo nos espaços da proteção social básica no município de Belém-PA

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the relationship between the legal and the real with regard to the Social Assistance Policy regarding the offer of actions in the Cohabitation Service for the elderly in the municipality of Belém-PA. The research had as method of investigation the historical and dialectical materialism, having as technical-operative procedures: bibliographical, documentary and field survey. The bibliographical survey prioritized beyond the statistics on longevity the debate of classic and contemporary authors problematizing human aging in the context of the production of capitalist inequalities, understanding it as a socially constructed category. The documentary survey consisted of readings of national and international documents, as well as documents from federal agencies, in order to identify the demographic aspects of aging at the national and local world level, as well as, if a historical overview of the policies of social protection to the elderly in Brazil, having as initial mark the guidelines implemented by international organizations. The field work consisted of the systematic observation of the twelve CRASs and the Zoé Gueiros Third Age Co-existence Center, as well as the consultation of technical documents produced to guide the actions carried out with users such as reports, projects and programs, in addition to, of the medical records of the elderly. In addition, a semi-structured interview with five professionals from four teams was also carried out to analyze how they evaluate the limits and possibilities for the materialization of the precepts of the Policy at the local level. The results indicate the contradictions between what the Assistance Policy advocates with the reality observed in the Coexistence Service's execution spaces, thus, it was identified the precariousness in the physical structure and in the material and human resources used in the CRAS, as well as the unequal treatment that the Municipal Assistance Policy offers to the Zoé Gueiros Center, which is the only space that meets the structural and accessibility requirements set by the Policy. Also, it was found that women in the age group of 60 to 69 are the main claimants of the Service, mainly because of the isolation condition in which they live which leads them to be regularly served by the Service, resisting the dismissal after two years of admission, recommended by the Policy, this situation leads to the technicians' effort to make feasible strategies that legitimize the permanence of these elderly women in the Service, demonstrating the contradiction existing in the Politics characterized by the discourse of access universalization and the real difficulty in its materialization. It is concluded, therefore, that in spite of advances in the scope of the Assistance Policy, in particular with regard to the Coexistence Service for the elderly, the materiality of the actions, today, are still permeated by weaknesses. In this sense, it is considered that there are structural and management limits that directly affect the materialization of actions, because what is observed in reality is that the social assistance spaces attend minimally to what predisposes the Policy, which leads to both effort and improvisation of professionals in trying to attend to what the Policy advocates. Therefore, it is evident that the real and the legal regarding the offer and execution of social assistance services dialogue minimally, in the spaces of execution of the Policy in the municipality of Belém-Pa, especially in the Coexistence Service.