Hospital Senhora da Oliveira – Guimarães received, on Friday, the visit of the Minister of Health of Guinea-Bissau, Dionisio Kumba. The Guinean official came to thank the cooperation of the professionals at Hospital de Guimaraes and the “availability of the means” to help his country.
Although Dionisio Compa’s visit took place in his personal capacity, she took the opportunity to sign a Memorandum of Understanding between the Hospital Senhora da Oliveira-Guimarães (HSOG) and the State of Guinea-Bissau, “for further cooperation in other areas of health in addition to those with whom we have already cooperated.” explained Henrique Capelas, Chairman of the Board of Directors of HSOG.
In addition to other occasional forms of cooperation, even during the period of the epidemic, HSOG, as one of the three hospitals associated with the University of Minho – the other hospitals being Braga and Viana do Castelo – participates in the EU “Ianda Guinea!” programme. The aim of this project, co-financed by the Camões Institute and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, is to contribute to universal health coverage in Guinea-Bissau, by strengthening the management of the National Health System (SNS) and improving the quality and quantity of healthcare professionals.
The Guinean Minister of Health points to the shortage of specialized doctors as one of the gaps in medical care in his country. The governor, himself a doctor, embodies the recollection of his professional experience, in which he had to undergo surgery on children without an anesthesiologist. “The country has always lived in a state of political instability and the health sector has suffered the most,” says Dionisio Compa.
30 training specialists
Under the title “Ianda Guiné”, 30 doctors are trained. According to Jose Fortunato, Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology at HSOG, “It’s about training excellent physicians, because specialists cannot be trained in a two-year program.”
These doctors are receiving training in the fields of internal medicine, gynecology, anesthesia and general surgery and are supposed to continue their training in Portugal in the second half of 2022. The training of these doctors should be completed in 2023, after a new training course, with Portuguese trainers in Guinea-Bissau.
“We have to take advantage of all that Portugal has to offer us and that we have not taken advantage of enough,” admits Portuguese Guinean doctor, who works at HSOG, Hans Dabo.
