Caring for the carer in Pediatric and Neonatal ICUs

Abstract

Death is seen as a shame and a failure, an event to be fought at all means. The nursing team deals with loss, pain, death and its fightin its daily routine. After having taken part in the course: “Health professionals and education: Death in their daily practice”, a team of nursingprofessionals of a public hospital of Sao Paulo asked for the contribution of the professionals of the Laboratory of Studies on Death of the Instituteof Psychology of USP to deal with the above situations, and this motivated the creation of the project “Caring for the carer in the hospital context”.In this article we present a work modality called Thematic Meetings with the following objectives: a) “warm-up” of the team in the central subjectto be approached; b) deepening on the subject brought by the team; c) planning the care action thought by the group. The activities were: verbalrelaxation, disconnection, introspection, participation in expressive activities and stories. The work was carried through in the Pediatric and NeonatalICU of the School Hospital of the University of Sao Paulo (UTIP/N-HU-USP), from the assistance to a child with a serious congenital disease thatdemanded internment in an Intensive Care Unit. 10 professionals of the nursing team of the unit had taken part. The initial demand was to learnto deal with death for “not feeling bad about it” and preventing an intense involvement with its patients. Among the presented subjects in thisthematic meeting are the following: 1) More identification with the role of mother than with the one of nurse; 2) Disruption of bonds; 3) the worldof the patient (interned in ICU since her birth); 4) the inexorable: death; 5) the inner child. It was possible to deal with the feelings of each memberof the group and those of the group as a whole, perceiving the potentialities and the fragilities of the team of this situation, respecting the limitsof each person, opening space for planning actions and strategies of care inside the institution.