Within the scope of the recovery and resilience plan, he said that there will be “many health centers that have the capacity to solve in terms of complementary diagnostics, and the problem (…) is having the human resources to put them there.”
Stressing that the matter is not only about appointing senior diagnostic and therapeutic technicians, the minister stated in the Parliamentary Health Committee, where she listened for four hours about the health emergency plan, that “there are many cases” in which vacancies are opened that are still to be filled.
“We can’t actually recruit. There’s a lot of competition, and it’s not just in the private sector, it’s outside the country,” he said, explaining that an anesthesiologist in Belgium earns four times what he earns in the private sector in Portugal.
The Minister acknowledged the possibility of “new models to attract professionals who are more of a liberal career model”, for professionals to remain in the NHS.
Regarding the problems in emergency situations due to the lack of professionals to ensure shifts, the government official added that a decree law is being studied that would help, at least, for another year, until “everything is further reorganized, with an additional amount of money paid.” emergency hours,” in addition to other incentives.
“Our goal is not to make people work 800 hours, because it’s unsustainable. People go into ‘burnout’, give up medicine, leave hospitals, go and do something else in life, that’s not a system,” he declared.
According to the Minister, the “on-duty” doctors are still there, noting that if the government had not reproduced the decree issued by the former Secretary of State for Health, Ricardo Mestre, stipulating the payment of an additional 40% of the hourly wage, Hospital da Guarda would not have had an emergency department. Open now.
Regarding the amounts paid, he commented, “There is almost an auction over which site pays more,” but he pointed out that “the issue is not a current issue.”
Also asked at the hearing about the Integrated National Continuing Care Network (RNCCI), the Minister said that “in recent years there have been very few developments”.
Ana Paula Martins described the situation in which the “network” lives, especially private social solidarity institutions, “whose daily payments are very low, with increasing costs that occur, with inflation” and the difficulties of attracting professionals.
“It is very difficult to survive and treat these patients,” he declared, highlighting the initiative of the Prime Minister, Luis Montenegro, to place the RNCCI under the supervision of the Ministries of Health and Social Security to speed up cases such as social hospitalization. .
The minister said the RNCCI’s PRR implementation rate was “very low” and gave an example: “For 5,498 beds, we had 544 tenders and eight contracts were concluded.”
He said: “I can give dozens of examples, even with the Health Regulatory Authority, of opening very important institutions that have been pending for three months awaiting licensing,” stressing that this situation “cannot continue.”
The Ministry of Health and the Deputy Prime Minister for Cohesion are now signing contracts “as quickly as possible”, to reduce bureaucracy in the process, because “they were evaluations on top of evaluations of architectural and engineering projects that had already been implemented” and that it was not the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Health, with all due respect, that would be resolved. the problem”.
In his opinion, “it is unacceptable” for there to be entities with closed families “waiting for a paper to be issued there.”
“At the moment, we have a law (…) The Executive Board will continue in this area of continuing and palliative care,” he said, but pointed out that at the moment there is not even a coordinator of the network who has resigned.
In contact with Lusa, the Ministry of Health said that the dismissal of the Regional Coordinator of Palliative Care ARS Lisboa and Vale do Tejo, Sergio Amadeo, occurred in January.
