The study aimed at understanding work under urgent and emergency conditions and its connection with the health of nursing professionals, who work at an urgency and emergency state service. Descriptive qualitative case study carried out at a state service in Porto Alegre, RS. The collection of data included the analysis of documents from the Institution, the observation of the work dynamics, and the performance of semi-structured interviews with the nursing professionals. The data were submitted to content analysis. One could understand that the health of the nursing professionals is constituted from a working dynamics which is sometimes harmful because it results from an organizational context that carries marks of a state health system with many gaps, however, that allows the meaning of work to be an essential element for the ability to keep the balance and not getting sick in view of the work demands.