Idealizando um “Sistema Médico Híbrido”: famílias, interrupção do tratamento convencional e uso de medicamentos tradicionais nos hospitais de Maputo

Abstract

In Mozambique, the National Health Service, despite playing a very important role in the prevention and cure of diseases, clearly continues to coexist with other therapeutic options, thus keeping medical pluralism alive in the country. Thus, the present study sought to understand the logic that drives certain families to interrupt the conventional treatment of a member and to resort to traditional therapies and medications (inside and outside hospitals). The methodological approach of the present study was qualitative, taking into account what are the social representations, habits, beliefs, attitudes and opinions regarding health and illness. In view of a deeper analysis of the subject, the study was not only based on the collection of ethnographic material in the Malanga and Luís Cabral neighborhoods, where 7 families were heard, but also in the Medical Ward of the Hospital Geral de Mavalane, where they were heard 4 nurses. From this study it was possible to realize that it is problematic to think that the use of tinyangas results from the lack of alternatives for health care, because, in this context, the healing process is not limited to eliminating the disease, also implying the resolution of the social problem. of which it is a manifestation. By acting in such a way, these families, living in urban spaces, show that the problem is not limited to the lack of qualified health professionals, or even to the inability on the part of the National Health Service to cover the entire national territory. The results of the study point to the existence of a set of logics that drive these families to act in these ways. Such logics are essentially guided by the circumstances of the illness; the nature of the symptoms; by the belief that there are diseases that only traditional medicine can cure; the incompatibility in terms of the notion of delay in the patient's healing process; the dispute for the patient and the neglect of local beliefs and healing practices. (TRADUÇÃO NOSSA)