The work of nuns rendering care for the mentally ill in Curitiba/Brazil during the old republican period

Abstract

This study addresses the work of nuns of São José de Moutiers Order rendering care to mentally ill and needy individuais at Santa Casa de Misericórdia, a former nursing home in Curitiba/Brazil and later at Hospício Nossa Senhora da Luz, a mental hospital in Curitiba. The investigative approach used was historical research with the respective document review of reports from the so-called Province government at the time, reports from Misericórdia Religious Sisterhood, the agreement between the religious congregation and the purveyor, journals of the period and the Chronicles of the Sisterhood. Time span took up the year of 1896, that is, the nuns’ arrival in Curitiba until 1937 when Province Mother Superior Léonie Blanchet died, during which the first hospital for mentally-ill individuais was set up in Paraná State. Sanctifying caring delivered by nuns of São José de Moutiers was part of the character of the members of that religious order. Caregiving was shaped along the time, by continuously permeating the hospital settings and also in nuns’ daily relationships in the hospital environment. It has been concluded that those women’s work has contributed for the understanding of nursing history as well as for the understanding of psychiatric nursing history in Paraná State/ Brazil.