Urban resilience and social services of general interest: who loses accessibility to health systems during crisis?

Abstract

Services of General Interest (SGI) relate to specific
societal models, mediating market laws and
mechanisms that mitigate their failures. Social
Services of General Interest planning plays
a relevant role in ensuring quality of life for all
citizens, giving them a sense of belonging and
citizenship using principles of accessibility and
territorial cohesion. The first part of this article
focuses on the discussion of the concept of SGI,
considering the specificities of the social models
they respond to and the logics of accessibility to
health services they advocate. In the second part,
we present fieldwork results demonstrating types
of constraints on accessibility to these services,
considering the post-2008 crisis in an urban system
in Portugal. The third section fulfills the purpose of
discussing the results and pointing out conclusive
lines of answer to the initial question. Despite the
ambition inherent in the objectives of the SGI,
the results prove that these goals were set aside
during the crisis. The accessibility to health
services decreased, excluding the most vulnerable
communities and families