Fair care in time of COVID-19 pandemic

The concept of “fair care” proposed by Vieira [1], applies to healthcare in general and nursing care in particular. According to the different scientific approaches, different perspectives in health sciences can be found. Medicine will focus the concept on the search for the most appropriate treatment for the disease and Nursing will consider “fair care” the most appropriate therapeutic intervention according to the human responses to people health-disease situations. In Ethics4Care Project of the Center of Interdisciplinary Research in Health (CIIS) of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, we are developing a study that seeks to build this “fair care” concept in health care. In this pandemic moment of COVID-19 in which we live, the definition of this concept is essential. Currently, we are experiencing a conflict between what is necessary and what is possible in health care, therefore the search for “fair care” appears to be the greatest ethical challenge for professionals. In this article, we present the preliminary results of a literature review that aimed to synthesize the “the state of art” on the current knowledge in this field.