a place where suffering matters enough to organize around
New specialized clinic centralizes care for chronic wounds, reducing complications, infections, and preventable amputations in the municipality. Service builds on existing telemedicine network and primary care coordination, with partnerships with Federal University of Pelotas for training and research.
- Complex Wound Care Service opened May 21, 2026, at Center for Specialties in Pelotas
- Service builds on telemedicine program launched in 2023 with mobile teams and remote consultations
- Common cases include diabetic ulcers, varicose sores, pressure injuries, and arterial wounds
- Partnership with Federal University of Pelotas for nursing student training and research
Pelotas inaugurated a centralized Complex Wound Care Service (SAFC) to treat chronic, difficult-to-heal wounds associated with diabetes, venous insufficiency, and pressure injuries, expanding on existing telemedicine services since 2023.
On Thursday afternoon, the city of Pelotas opened the doors to a new specialized clinic dedicated entirely to treating wounds that won't heal. The Complex Wound Care Service, housed in the city's Center for Specialties on Voluntários da Pátria Street, represents the first centralized facility of its kind in the municipality—a physical anchor for what had previously existed only as a mobile team moving between neighborhood health clinics and remote consultations.
The wounds that arrive here are stubborn ones. Diabetic ulcers that refuse to close. Varicose sores that linger for years. Pressure injuries that develop in bedridden patients. Arterial wounds from poor circulation. These are not simple cuts. They carry weight: the risk of infection spreading, of amputation becoming necessary, of a person losing the ability to walk or work or live independently. The clinic exists because these complications are common enough, and their consequences serious enough, that the city decided to stop treating them piecemeal.
Pelotas had been trying to address this problem since 2023, when the health department launched a telemedicine program. A specialized team would review cases sent in by primary care doctors, offer guidance, and occasionally visit clinics in person with equipment and expertise. It worked, but it was scattered. Now, with a dedicated space—consultation rooms, procedure areas, the infrastructure for long-term follow-up—the city hopes to do more. Mayor Fernando Marroni framed it as an investment in quality of life and a way to reduce hospitalizations. The service will continue offering remote support to neighborhood clinics, but patients with complex cases can now come to one place.
Two patients who have been through the system spoke at the opening. João André de Lima, who has used the city's wound care services for some time, welcomed having a single, dedicated location. Eduino Fuhrmann had been traveling to a private clinic called Fraget for three years to treat a varicose ulcer; he said the care he received after moving to the new center was thorough and attentive. These are small testimonies, but they carry the weight of time—years spent managing a wound, years of uncertainty about whether it would ever truly heal.
Lilian Rubira, a nurse specialist in dermatological care and the person who conceived of this clinic, described the decision to build it as a response to demand she and her colleagues had observed in the city. The goal was straightforward: create something structured, something specialized, something that could reach everyone who needed it. The clinic will receive referrals through the same telemedicine system already in place. Primary care doctors send cases. The specialist team assesses urgency and decides who needs to come in person.
The clinic is also becoming a teaching space. The Federal University of Pelotas has partnered with the city through a program called Amor à Pele—Love for Skin—which will use the facility for education, research, and knowledge-sharing. Nursing students will do their final clinical rotations here, learning how to care for complex wounds while contributing to the work of the clinic itself. It is the kind of arrangement that benefits everyone: the university gets a real clinical setting, students get experience, and patients get more hands available to help them.
What the clinic represents, ultimately, is a shift in how a city thinks about a particular kind of suffering. Chronic wounds are not emergencies—they do not send people to the emergency room in crisis. But they are persistent, they are disabling, and they are preventable in many cases. By centralizing expertise and creating a dedicated space, Pelotas is saying that this suffering matters enough to organize around it.
Notable Quotes
I'm glad there's now a specific, single location in the city for this, able to serve other people who sometimes have difficulty accessing certain places.— João André de Lima, patient
After we recognized this demand in the city, we sought to build this structured, quality service specialized in complex wounds to reach everyone in the community who needs care.— Lilian Rubira, dermatological nursing specialist and clinic founder
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did it take until 2026 for a city to build a dedicated clinic for wounds that won't heal? Surely this isn't a new problem.
It isn't new at all. But the telemedicine approach that started in 2023 probably felt like it was working well enough—remote consultations, mobile teams visiting clinics. The question becomes: at what point does "working" become "not working well enough"? When you see the same patients coming back repeatedly, or infections spreading, or people losing limbs that might have been saved.
The two patients mentioned at the opening—they seem almost like afterthoughts in the story. But they've been living with these wounds for years.
Yes. Eduino Fuhrmann spent three years traveling to a private clinic. That's three years of appointments, three years of hoping the ulcer closes, three years of not knowing if he'd have to lose his leg. Now there's a place five minutes away. It's not dramatic, but it changes everything about what that person's life looks like.
The university partnership—is that genuine collaboration or just a way to staff the clinic cheaply with students?
It could be both. Students need clinical experience, and they need to learn from real cases. The clinic needs hands and energy. But there's also something real about integrating teaching into patient care—it tends to raise standards. You're not just treating wounds; you're training the next generation to treat them better.
What happens to the telemedicine service now that there's a physical clinic?
It stays. That's the point—the clinic doesn't replace the remote work. It supplements it. Primary care doctors in neighborhood clinics still send cases in. The specialist team still reviews them remotely. But now, when someone needs hands-on care, there's a place for them to go. It's a both-and, not an either-or.
And the wounds themselves—diabetes, venous insufficiency, pressure injuries. Are these preventable?
Many of them are, or at least their worst outcomes are. Diabetic ulcers often develop because of poor circulation and loss of sensation. If you catch it early, if you manage the diabetes well, if you keep pressure off the wound—you can prevent amputation. The clinic exists partly because prevention failed somewhere upstream. But it also exists to prevent the next failure.