Neonatology and the end-of-life: the bioethics implications related to health team-patient-family

Abstract

This study aims at knowing what represents the terminal neonate patient to the health team, as well as regarding their relation to terminal neonate patient and his family. The
method chosen was the qualitative-descriptive type, and methodological guidelines based on Collective Subject Discourse. The study interviewed twenty health professionals, ages over twenty-five-years old, responsible for the terminal neonate patients’ treatment and care, working in medium size hospital in the town of Pouso Alegre (MG). The results reinforce that the conflict between the professional personality and the health area’s reality guides the health team-terminal neonate patient-family relationship, inducing the health team to see their own presence as embarrassing and useless, next the patient’s family. However, the bioethical principles about the end of life overlap the patient’s family right of knowing the truth, and establish that, in face of the right to the dialogue with the team, the personification of the health team-terminal neonate patient stands as the ethical essence of this relationship.