UFPel CuidATIVA Unit: A Palliative Care Concept in Tune with Practice

Abstract

The article aims to reflect on the implementation of CuidATIVA, the Day Palliative Care Unit of the Federal University of Pelotas, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. It analyzes its structure and history that involves collaborative creative processes to make it a reality, based on people's autonomy, active participation, solidarity and group self-management. The main focus of this analysis is on the process of experimenting with new ways of caring and promoting health, combining popular and scientific knowledge and generating quality of life by creating a concept of Palliative Care open to community participation and the unforeseen circumstances of the implementation process itself. This is an article in which the authors act in the process of construction of Palliative Care scenarios at CuidATIVA, involving linearities and continuities, also discontinuities, folds, indentations, interruptions and bifurcations, perfect rhizome image, a concept of botany applied to the philosophy of difference (Deleuze and Guattari) and to the ecology of knowledge (Boaventura de Souza Santos), a possibility of ethical-aesthetic-political resistance. Community participation and purposeful political articulation stand out in CuidATIVA, focusing on sustainability in order to promote the participants' quality of life, aiming to minimize physical, emotional, social and spiritual problems, including practices aimed at caregivers, family members and the team work itself.