Humanization of healthcare practices: cutting across, in defense of life

The principle behind the National Humanization Policy for Care and Management in the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) is for it to cut across healthcare knowledge and practices. This principle poses a challenge because it requires dialogue between the frontiers of knowledge and power, and continual and cooperative reinvention of the lines of these frontiers. Scientific and technical knowledge needs to be questioned and healthcare practices that include the differences between subjects and the tensions between management and care need to be negotiated. For the SUS that is desired, expansion of new healthcare production practices is required, in order to achieve "defense of life".