If there is one achievement that we (Portugal) should be proud of, it is the building of the National Health Service, in 1979. In 45 years, we have recorded a huge increase in life expectancy for Portuguese and a significant decrease in life expectancy for Portuguese. Mortality rate, especially in children. We have built a wide sponsorship network in the national territory. We have developed an answer for all citizens, regardless of their financial situation. not only to the poorest, but also to all those who are willing and able to have recourse to private regimes, and always find in the public service the best answer to their needs, given the complexity of their disease or the exclusion of treatment on the condition of any policy.
It should be noted that this success (the success of inclusivity and the tendency to be free, and the consequent increase in life expectancy, the aging of the population, and the increase in chronic and rare diseases), is currently the causative factor. The most obvious financial difficulties facing the SNS. Despite the clear general consensus in Portuguese society on the importance of these founding principles of SNS (universality and free direction), it is necessary to take measures so that this notion of societal community is orderly and effective in the provision of health care.
“We need to continue to grow the financial resources (…) to retain and evaluate health professionals.”
For this, there are, in our opinion, three commendable pillars for responding to SNS challenges: investment policy in human resources; Strengthen SNS investment policy and reform health management tools. In other words, we need to continue to increase the financial resources available, as successive governments have done, with the exception of the period 2011-2015, to retain and evaluate health professionals, where job review should be the first priority. …we must continue to reclassify and build new hospitals, health centers and continuing care units. We have to acquire and upgrade basic equipment for health units and for the provision of care. But we also have to be able to better organize and manage the resources available.
The creation of the Executive Board, a structure that will practically respond to the NHS, which has been in office for a very short time, has already given the first signals to achieve these goals: the unprecedented approval, for the first time in time, of the activities of hospital unit plans, which provides predictability means of administration; and the goal of establishing local health units with enhanced autonomy, among other administrative dimensions, for the recruitment of professionals.
Let’s go on!
Deputy and PS Coordinator in the Parliamentary Health Committee
