La salud revolucionaria: El caso Barrio Adentro

this article is a first approximation to an anthropological analysis of the mission ？barrio adentro？, the organizational strategy that, since 2003, has tried to respond to the serious deficiencies of the national health system. within the framework of the new national project expressed in the 1999 constitution, the author describes the principal characteristics of the new system, utilizing the evidence proportioned by field work in the municipalities maracaibo and san francisco in the state of zulia. it is assumed that the triad health - disease - attention constitutes a social and culturally conditioned system and that changes as well as resistances will find expression in day-to-day experience. the first results indicate that the most important change is the accessibility of the majority of the population in situation of poverty to doctors and medicine within the framework of primary health care, together with the conformation of a local network of relations based on the doctor's consulting room.