Chega’s chief considers hospitals currently facing a “pre-chaos” situation and defended on Tuesday that users should be able to temporarily turn to special health units when they find services closed in the NHS.
“I think we are in a very important pre-chaotic situation and we have to do something to prevent this from happening,” Andre Ventura said at the end of a meeting with the management of the Beatrice Angelo Hospital in Llores (Lisbon province), the unit whose department of gynecology and obstetrics was closed this weekend.
The Chega leader also predicted that “in all likelihood, citizens will have to face new closures in the coming days” regarding maternity and obstetric services at this hospital.
At the meeting, the management of that hospital unit claimed the limitations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the lack of professionals to justify the situation.
“We have to stop at this notion that the virus is the responsibility of everything in Portugal. Nobody thinks that Covid is the cause of what is happening anymore”, criticized Ventura, considering that “in recent months the government has done nothing to ensure that when this hospital was converted to a general hospital that was keeping specialists in it.”
“Not looking for other professionals and not being able to retain others we already have is bad management. It means that we are now facing a problem and we don’t have professionals to solve it.”
Regarding the emergency plan announced by the health minister, Ventura said that “there is nothing satisfactory about this”. The solution to these cases, according to the official, includes “modeling schedules”, giving “advance information that services are closed” and “laying the groundwork for domestic and international recruitment of specialists under conditions decent for our national service.” health” and “acceptable wages”.
Chega also argues that “so long as this moment of crisis continues in the services, they can be used, either through a medical voucher or through a medical examination” in private hospitals, with the state’s contribution to this service.
On Tuesday, the party presented two legislative initiatives to Parliament to improve access to health care, specifically in “citizens’ access to counselling, complementary means for timely diagnosis and treatment, and creation of measures to protect pregnant women in hospitals.” Health care and at work.
