Entre sirenes e silêncios: uma trajetória de cuidado e resistência na urgência e emergência

Abstract

This work articulates the personal and professional trajectory of the author, a nursing technician with over fifteen years of experience in emergency services, in dialogue with her training in occupational therapy. It is a theoretical-reflective essay that seeks to analyze the psychosocial impacts of this frontline work and its repercussions on the mental health of workers, highlighting the tensions between lived experience and theoretical foundations. The analysis begins with experiences in emergency care, articulated with frameworks from public health and occupational therapy, to discuss the contradictions between the guidelines of public health policies, especially the National Policy for Emergency Care (PNAU), and the concrete reality of shifts. Issues such as work overload, precarious working conditions, and emotional distress among professionals are highlighted. In this context, occupational therapy is presented as a field of action capable of welcoming, understanding, and intervening in psychological suffering, proposing comprehensive care strategies based on qualified listening, the reconstruction of meaning, and the valuing of daily life as a therapeutic space. Thus, this study seeks to answer the following question: how can the author's professional experiences in an emergency service, marked by overload and psychological suffering, be analyzed in light of occupational therapy principles to propose reflections on the comprehensive care of healthcare workers in these services? It concludes with the urgent need for public policies that ensure not only the population's access to health services, but also the protection and well-being of those who sustain care daily, contributing to more humanized and sustainable practices in the field of emergency care.