[Nursing partnership with users in the defense of SUS]

This reflexive study aimed at presenting, based on the human rights framework, relevant elements for nursing care in the defense of the users of the Brazilian Single Health System (SUS). The assurance of health as a fundamental right and a government's responsibility was an achievement of the population through SUS, founded on the principles of universal, integral and equitable care, expanding the conception of health beyond the idea of the lack of disease, understood as quality of life. Nurses have a potential to perform a single role in the defense of the right to health and right to life and, by means of different partnerships, to strengthen the exercise of citizenship.