The executive director of the National Health Service (SNS), Álvaro Almeida, estimated this Wednesday, December 24, that there are around 2,800 inappropriate admissions to hospitals, either due to social situations or the lack of beds in long-term care.
“We know that it is a reality that we have in the National Health Service that there are a few thousand, around 2,800 cases, of people who should not be admitted to acute hospitals, either because they should have already had access to beds in the national network of continued or integrated care, or because they should have been referred for social responses”he told journalists.
Álvaro Almeida was speaking during a visit he made this morning to the Santos Silva Hospital, in Vila Nova de Gaia (Porto district), part of the Local Health Unit (ULS) of Gaia/Espinho.
The person in charge said that, if it is possible to resolve the two areas involved in undue hospitalizations, “space will be created to have more acute beds in the units” and estimated that in the National Continuing Care Network there are “around 1,500 beds authorized to open in the coming months”, but admitted that this will not come in time for the flu peak.