Español Español

Abstract

The right to health includes palliative care for patients with a terminal diagnosis. This aspect of the therapeutic care is provided through a network of technical, legal, managerial, and institutional variables, within specific socio-cultural practices. Despite the array of normative protocols around palliative care, it is characterized by collaborations and sometimes tensions between health workers, patients, and family members. The different meanings it takes depends on the frames of reference that regulate their interaction, and these are defined by the institutional structure, organization, and functioning. An anthropological and social approach is proposed to analyze how palliative care provision oscillates between a legal obligation and necessity and how the normative accounts for institutional autonomy and the non-normative is revealed by social practices.