Ser profissional de saúde com deficiência no ambiente hospitalar

Abstract

Disabilities can be physical, sensorial, intellectual, or multiple. Despite legal and scientific definitions, it is imperative to look at the disability as a social construction. The Brazilian Law of Allotment establishes that vacancies should be allotted for people with disabilities in companies, to guarantee that they are included. The objective of this study was to understand the experience of health professionals with disabilities in the work environment of hospitals, in a city of Minas Gerais. This is a qualitative research that used Social Phenomenology, with health professionals who had some form of disability. Individual interviews were performed, recorded, and transcribed in their entirety, following a semi-structured script, in December 2017. To organize data, the QSR Nvivo® software, version 11, was used. A comprehensive analysis was conducted, according to the precepts of social phenomenology and content analysis. Nineteen professionals were included (nursing technicians, nurses, physicians, a physical therapist, a lab technician, a radiology technician, an anatomy and necropsy technician); 10 were women and 9 men, with a mean age of 42.1 years of age. The meaning the professionals attributed to their work was separated in the categories: Personal life contribution, and Contributions to society. The group of categories “reasons why” and “reasons to” provoked the emergence of the lived type “health professional with disabilities in the hospital environment”, which is the person/group who chooses the profession due to reasons related to their own experiences or not, planning to progress professionally, and therefore, seeking to improve knowledge and presenting the desire of continuing to work after retirement. Participants recognize that a disability influences their work due to their different limitations, such as difficulties listening, slowness in the performance of some tasks, in addition to situations in which they were the victims of prejudice. They also mentioned the lack of accessibility in the physical environment, having some expectancies with regards to the promotion of a more humane environment for professionals with disabilities, as that would improve teamwork with the objective of making good healthcare available to the patients. The participants state to feel as part of the team — despite experiencing situations of prejudice or protectionism by their colleagues —, and to have good relations with the patients, despite noticing some negative attitudes on their part. They maintain good relations with their superiors, despite not always feeling supported by them. Their expectancies regarding work include9 increasing dialogue, trust, and teamwork, having patients understand better their disabilities, and getting improved access to their superiors to get their demands regarding work conditions attended. The biggest challenges they indicated in their work were: Personal, professional and institutional challenges, and Challenges of the being-disabled-professional. The facilitators were: Institutional and personal. Suggestions for other people with disabilities were: encouragement to overcome limits, and respecting their health condition. It was found that cross-sectional programs of inclusion that traverse all axes of the environment and all actors involved (health professionals with disabilities, patients, work colleagues, managers, family members) are necessary.