Considerations on the hiring process of dentists in Brazilian public health service and its legal repercussions

Abstract

It is important to comply with the administrative and regulatory requirements in hiring and provision of position for Dentists that underwent public admission examinations to operate on public health service. The activity provided by dental general practitioner or member of a Family Health Team-FHT is characterized by continuous and indispensable health services to the population. Therefore, it is recommended that these positions, whenever possible, be filled by public admission examinations. This paper aims to report a case of investigation by the Public Ministry with forensic dental counseling, in which aspects of provision of position and operation of Dentists of the FHT and general practitioners in the Brazilian public health system were compared, addressing the ethical and legal aspects inherent to the subject. In the case studied it was found that the functions performed by Dentists who work in the FHT and Basic Health Units are similar to each other, and that no technical requirements allowing one to differ them from another were noticed. It is emphasized that municipal managers must respect the legal principles concerning the provision of position for professionals to work in the public health service, under penalty of having their professional conducts investigated by the Public Ministry.