Community health nursing practices in contexts of poverty, uncertainty and unpredictability: a systematization of personal experiences

Several years of professional nursing practices, while living in the poorest neighbourhoods in the outlying areas of Brazil's Amazon region, have led the author to develop a better understanding of marginalized populations. Providing care to people with leprosy and sex workers in riverside communities has taken place in conditions of uncertainty, insecurity, unpredictability and institutional violence. The question raised is how we can develop community health nursing practices in this context. A systematization of personal experiences based on popular education is used and analyzed as a way of learning by obtaining scientific knowledge through critical analysis of field practices. Ties of solidarity and belonging developed in informal, mutual-help action groups are promising avenues for research and the development of knowledge in health promotion, prevention and community care and a necessary contribution to national public health programmers

Injustice, Suffering, Difference: How Can Community Health Nursing Address the Suffering of Others?

Social justice brings to life the purpose of public health—improving a population\u27s overall health and well-being. Critiques of the concept demonstrate that social justice is inconsistently defined and rarely is acted upon, and continuation of these injustices constitutes a form of suffering. Seeing one\u27s self as disconnected from others makes their suffering normal. Viewing others from an ethical, moral, and human rights perspective helps one understand that the well-being of the self and the individual rests on the well-being of the collective other; this obligates each person to ameliorate and, if possible, prevent the suffering of others