reasons to look for a university hospital’s childish medical treatment which is requested by parents or somebody responsible for the child

Abstract

Health services are managed hierarchically in three levels of technological complexity: primary, secondary and tertiary, and the population should use them according to the specificity of their complaints, aiming at more efficiency and universal access. In practice, the population prefers to go to tertiary level hospitals for simple problems, which could easily be solved by Basic Health Service Units (BHUs). The objective of this survey was to find out the reasons why parents or children caretakers look for high complexity hospitals, and how frequently they make use of basic health services. This research interviewed 222 parents and caretakers of children who were undergoing medical treatment at the Pediatrics Emergency Room from a School Hospital located in the city of Londrina, in March and April of 2006. Data analysis showed that , although 80,6% of the population interviewed used the BHUs , 56,7% of the children seen at the Pediatrics Emergency Room came with no referrals, and 33,3% chose the ER for its quality services. The most frequent complaint was fever ( 21,6%) and other external causes took the last position with only 1, 4% of the cases . Results from the study showed that the Londrina State University School Hospital Pediatrics Emergency Room sees a great number of children with simple complaints which could be easily solved by basic level health care. However, in general, most hospitals have been legitimized by the population, used to always look for hospitals, rather than BHUs , whenever they need any kind of health care.