Health on the fringes: dilemmas of the territoriality of Primary Health Care for refugees in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

This article presents and analyzes the tensions, negotiations and arrangements that comprise the process of devising a care structure for the refugee population in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro within the scope of Primary Health Care (PHC). We are of the opinion that the creation of this care structure is derived from the intersection of more than one normative regime, namely that of health and that of the refuge location, which represent an organization and structure that is often conflicting. In this respect, we examine the intermediary agency work that the health operators perform with the government regulations they have at their disposal to combine the notions of territoriality that orient both PHC and the dimension experienced by the refugees. It is perceived that Primary Care is a privileged place for the visibility and mapping of this population based on focused strategies of health promotion actions and alliance with a community leader, since it is a more porous level of care for flexibilization of the normal services of the Unified Health System.