From Street Clinic to Clinic on the Street the perception of professionals and managers about the transition process.

Abstract

This article describes the perception of professionals and managers about the transition process from the Street Clinics to Clinics on the Street in the cities: Florianopolis, Joinville and Criciuma in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. It is a qualitative with a descriptive character research. The results of this research show, through the professionals` perspective, that the transition process was characterized by a period of time where the teams were left without references to work and suffered some rejection of the areas that they assumed.  The transition was also seen as a moment of team growth and ripening, and a shift in the action focus, where the mental health care and drugs use are reduced to biological health care. To the managers, the transition to basic care appears as a bet in the strategy and brings the homeless population closer to the health basic care. The managers recognize that the transition points to a fragility in the relationship of basic care and health care policy; and at the same time creates an expectation that the Clinic on the Street will become a network educator for health care for homeless population.