Semi-structured interviews with Base Post workers

I will present the results of the five semi-structured interviews conducted with workers in the Base Post. Informants’ responses were recorded verbatim in confidential digital audio files. A separate file is recorded for each informant. Some supplementary hand written notes were taken

as well. Interviews were conducted in Portuguese, which is the primary language for all interviewees.

The interviewees provided informed consent for participation in the research, according to acceptable standard protocols. I explained to each of them the scope and purpose of the research and other relevant issues prior to recording. The voice recorder remained on the table in full sight of the informant during the interview and was always manipulated in full sight. The interview guide sheet and the field journal were also kept on the table and in full sight.

Regarding rapport, I was at ease with all of the informants as I had already shared at least one trip with each of them prior to the interview, as well as interactions in the Base Post office.

Informants were not compensated for participation in the interviews.

3.3.4.1 Interview guide

Informants were invited to speak freely about a list of prompts contained in an interview guide sheet (see Appendix A). Prompts were used to elicit open-ended responses. A supplementary guide sheet that was elaborated for interviews with DSEI administrators was also used selectively (see Appendix B). Prompts that did not apply were omitted. Most prompts in the guide were written in Portuguese. Most of the other prompts are in English. (The same guide was used in interviews with informants in the CASAI and with the DSEI administrators. The results of those interviews are not included in this dissertation.)

The items on the interview guide are ordered. The interview guide has three sections.

Each section responds to a specific concern: identification and personal history, opinions of Indians as patients, and needs and achievements in health care delivery. I did not always use the prompts in the same order. Informants also sometimes moved towards topics spontaneously.

The first section establishes a demographic profile of the informants. It requests the informants to present identification data. This section provides information about the informant within the health care organization and its history. This section also serves to ease entry into the interview because the questions are simple and factual. For example, the items ask about job position and assigned tasks, educational background and job history. I requested informants to specify the length of time working for the Base Post and their prior employment in health care. I also asked about their contract status, if they did not mention it spontaneously.

The second section aims to establish the orientation and scope of informants’ approach to a counter-role as health workers. That is, to establish their view of their status relative to the patient population and to their co-workers. This section prompts the informants to describe how Madiha behave and interact as patients and health care recipients. The items ask about the informants’ experience with villagers and any training and preparation for work with this specific population. I also asked them what it is like to work with Madiha and how they differ from another population (e.g., non-Indians) as patients. Similarly, items also ask how Indian Health differs from health care for the non-Indian population. This section includes questions about their degree of acquaintance with villagers. I also requested their opinions of Madiha native medicine (medicina tradicional) and of the relations between the two medical systems.

The third section aims to establish how informants perceive their empirical abilities in terms of the functionality of resources, whether physical, technical, or specialized knowledge.

This section prompts the informants to name and describe specific aspects of the work that are problematic or successful. This section asks the informant to list problems, needs and difficulties with delivery, as well as achievements and successes. This section also requests suggestions for

improvements and how to achieve them. Items also ask about desirable changes and mechanisms to achieve change.

3.3.4.2 Duration

The interviews range in duration from 21 minutes to 1 hour. The mean duration of the interviews is 29 minutes. The interviews with the nurses lasted the longest and included additional questions about administration.

3.3.4.3 Interviewees

The interviewees are permanent staff at the Base Post in Manoel Urbano city. They are: Natália (administrator), Mônica (nurse), Ana Lucia (nursing technician), Rafaela (dental assistant) and Jorge (boat pilot). The Base Post lacked a physician and a dentist throughout 2009-2010.

The universe of interviewees excludes the truck driver and one boat pilot, who were not available. The driver does not participate in trips to the villages.

3.3.4.4 Dates

The interviews were conducted between July 14 and July 22, 2010. The Base Post personnel were stationed in the city at this time. They were preparing for an upcoming trip a few days’

later. They were working regular work hours in the Base Post office, assembling supplies and stock, and performing other tasks. The interviews were conducted during office hours.

The interviews occurred six months after the events narrated in the ethnographic sections of this dissertation. All the interviewees, except Natália, had participated in that trip.

3.3.4.5 Interview locations

Four interviews were conducted in the kitchen of the Base Post office in Manoel Urbano city.

The interview with Natália was conducted in the medicine storage room.

The kitchen was chosen because it was an undisturbed area at the time of interview.

There was privacy during most of each interview. Usually, the workers spend most of their time elsewhere, in the air-conditioned administration office or outside on the front porch. When they are in the Base Post office, Madiha individuals usually stay outside around the front porch or inside the common room and watch television. (After the radio was installed, they also crowded around the radio to communicate with the two villages that had a working radio.)

The kitchen is a public space. A few individuals walked past and into the area during the interviews. The cook usually keeps a thermal flask with coffee and some biscuits on the table throughout the day. The kitchen also has a water fountain with chilled mineral water. Workers and Madiha individuals freely help themselves to these refreshments. There is no food segregation here.

The medicine storage room was the most undisturbed area at the time of Natália’s interview. It usually remains closed and locked. The room is air-conditioned, to preserve the medicines and other supplies. Some workers briefly entered during the interview to get supplies.