The Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, announced this Monday, November 24th, in Guarda, the opening, soon, of a line of financing to requalify emergency services that are in a “more fragile situation” and need work.
“There are emergencies throughout the country that have to be requalified, they need fundamental works, because it is not possible to continue working under the conditions in which some of the emergencies are working today. Guarda is one example, Beja, where I was last week, is another, but there are more cases”said Ana Paula Martins.
The Minister of Health was speaking to journalists during her visit to the Local Health Unit (ULS) of Guarda, as part of the preparation of the National Health Service (SNS) for the winter period, and where she met with the board of directors and inaugurated the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health.
The official added that the interventions are necessary for patients, “for the sake of humanization”, but also so that the circuits “can be organized in the most appropriate way”, since “emergency is a difficult area”.
“The emergency department does not have the appropriate circuits that we need for patients to be received, triaged, referred and then remain under observation for as long as they need. They cannot stay in corridors and, at the moment, they are in corridors, but this is not the case now, they have been in corridors for many years”.
Ana Paula Martins highlighted that the works will also allow healthcare professionals to continue working in better conditions and providing better care.
“It is not possible to have facilities like we do and do what we do, despite the immense effort, sacrifice and selflessness of the teams, which is transversal to the entire NHS”he considered.
In addition to investing in improving infrastructure, the Minister of Health said that there is also a lack of “some equipment” and that the Government will continue to invest in CT scans, ultrasounds, MRIs and Imaging.
“We are using the PRR for this and prioritizing health units, such as the one in Guarda, but especially in the interior of the country, which have been left behind in surgical, diagnostic and imaging areas, and which we have to be able to make up for now to catch up with the delay of more than two decades”he stated.
The minister said she was convinced that they had succeeded “do it as a matter of pragmatism, even the calendar”.
The official added that it is also necessary to attract human resources, which can be “easier” with works and equipment in services.
But having emergency rooms with better and well-equipped facilities is not enough, according to Ana Paula Martins, it is also necessary to improve coordination with primary health care.
“The question I ask is why so many green and blue patients end up in the emergency room, those who need monitoring, so many nursing home patients, who end up here when they didn’t need to, therefore, we have to organize the circuits better”he considered.
The minister recalled that ULS are part of primary health care and that they need to work to screen for less urgent diseases.
“We improved from last year to this year, we removed around 40 percent of emergencies from acute illness, considered less urgent, to complementary care in primary health care, what we call deferred consultation”he revealed.
According to the government official, this was achieved mainly through Line SOS 24, but it cannot be done only through that route.
“We have to have proximity responses and health centers, which, today, the majority are model B, I am sure that we can improve a lot at this level too and that is the challenge we have for primary health care professionals”he concluded.