Palliative Care: The Social Pain

This article intends to carry out an analysis on Palliative Care and its relationship with human rights,
considering the multidimensional conceptions inherent to pain as advocated by Cicely Saunders. The
author delves into the concept of total pain by understanding it as a set of symptoms that can
contribute to a pain picture that encompasses the physical, psychological, social and spiritual
dimensions that affect a patient's life. In this way, the field in question is presented from the concept of
total pain, revealing its dimensions of social pain. Thus, it is based on bibliographical research, using
the method of narrative revision. Emphasis is placed on the study of Michel Foucault, in his last
phase, in the reflexive process on pain and finitude as practices of freedom. The purpose of palliative
care is to give meaning to pain in order to re-signify life in a limiting condition imposed by the nonprospect
of healing. It also provides a vital redirection of care for the maximization of the quality of life.
It is concluded that social pain is exacerbated by a tense and contradictory daily life, which often
imposes a harsh reality that threatens the right of universal access to health (without discrimination
and social security) and makes it become distant, almost utopian. This is certainly a dilemma of the all
Brazilian health professionals.