The Forum for Defence of the Brazilian Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde) and its role in building community participation in the fight against the privatization of health

Abstract

Based on a Foucauldian framework, this article discusses the involvement of the Forum for Defence of the Sistema Único de Saúde in the fight against health care privatization. Community participation is a locus of experience that produces subjects implicated in the production of public health care. The locus of experience in this instance derives from the rejection of private elements that historically have been part of Brazilian public policies. It is an experience that produces workers and service users as agents able to defend the public system and endowed with instituting power.