The Setor de Cuidados Paliativos da Disciplina de Clínica Médica (Internal Medicine) da Universidade Federal de São Paulo, activated a Bearevement program under the direction of my assistant Dr. João Paulo Solano. He organized separate meetings of family carers and patients, fortnightly. The attendance has been good and the results seem encouraging.

In February, after 21 months of negotiation with the largest Brazilian Insurance Co. in the field of Health Insurance and Home Care, I was able to convince them to join me in a Pilot Project of Home Palliative Care. This week I will be involved with the legal steps of setting up a small enterprise to start the operation. In Brazil there are 30-0dds Palliative Care groups that only take care of "medicare-like people". Citizens that are covered by private health insurance do not have any coverage at the end-of-their lives - in the State of São Paulo, there are close to 16 million people!

I intend to prove that this project is viable, and hopefully open up opportunities for employment of physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, etc. The insurance company has requested a one year exclusive contract should the project work well.