Entevista com Nelson Rodrigues dos Santos

Abstract

Nelson Rodrigues dos Santos made a long testimonial, in December 2005, to the Health Technician Observatory of the Joaquim Venâncio Polytechnic School of Health (Fiocruz). The goal was to record the trajectory of a historical leader, both in the fight for democracy and in the sanitary reform in a project developed by the Observatory about the memory of professional education for health in Brazil. It focused on the 1980's and 1990's, which witnessed moments of great political tension in the country, as represented by re-democratization, sanitary reform, the National Constituent Assembly, and the neoliberal turn in the health policies. In this interview, a revised and updated synthesis of that testimonial, "Nelsão," as he is called by his friends, talks about his background and about the choice he made for Collective Health, discusses themes related to the Brazilian health sector in the past few decades, ranging from the genesis of the SUS to the victories and defeats of the public policies in the social area. A graduate in medicine and holding a doctoral in preventive medicine from the University of São Paulo, respectively in 1961 and 1967, he was a full professor of Collective Health at the Federal University of Londrina and a Consultant for Opas/OMS. Nelsão is currently a collaborating professor at the State University of Campinas and the president of the Applied Sanitary Law Institute (Instituto de Direito Sanitário Aplicado, Idisa).