PCP wants to hear Minister of Health and Executive Director of SNS about emergencies

The PCP requested the hearing, as a matter of urgency, of the Minister of Health, the executive director of the SNS and the National Federation of Doctors on the “reorganization of emergency services”, considering that the solutions found aggravate problems.

In a request addressed to the chairman of the parliamentary health committee, PSD deputy António Maló de Abreu, the PCP points out that “maternal health is today faced with serious problems that are growing and for which urgent responses are needed, but also structural measures that put an end to the progressive decrease in assistance provided by the National Health Service (SNS)”.

According to the party, “in response to the difficulties experienced in the emergency services of obstetrics and gynecology in the birth wards”, the Government decided “to proceed with the reorganization of the emergencies of gynecology and obstetrics, in the region of Lisbon and Vale do Tejo, also advancing to the reorganization of Psychiatry emergencies at national level”.

“These are solutions that, in addition to not solving the problems, make them even worse, since they do not resolve what is at their origin, which is the huge shortage of health professionals, in particular doctors”, defends the PCP.

With regard to the deliberation, by the executive board of the SNS, of “closing, on weekends and on a rotating basis, the emergency obstetrics and gynecology services of six hospitals in the Metropolitan Area of ​​Lisbon”, the PCP understands that “this solution constitutes above all a loss of access to the care that the population needs”.

“It outlines a clear path for the closure of services and is assumed to be a response that could be extended indefinitely and extend to other valences”, they consider.

Continuing with the criticisms, the PCP maintains that the decision of the executive board of the SNS regarding psychiatric emergencies, which is also based “on the sharing of resources between several hospitals”, leaves even “more concerns, from the outset, from the point of view of respect for labor rights”.

“The situation is even more worrying because the representative structures of workers, in particular doctors, were not heard about the measures determined by the executive direction of the SNS”, it is indicated.

Referring then to the “problems that arise in general emergency services, in which there have been waiting times much longer than desired”, the PCP addresses the statements by the Minister of Health, Manuel Pizarro, who admitted extending “the rotation model from emergencies and gynecology and obstetrics to general emergency services”.

For the PCP, these statements allow “to predict that a reorganization of general emergencies is also being prepared here without knowing the contours of this reorganization, nor which entities will be involved in it”.

“With the framework described, the Parliament Group of the PCP requests the holding, as a matter of urgency, of the Hearing of the Minister of Health, the Executive Director of the SNS and the National Federation of Doctors” in the parliamentary health committee, says the document .