Parents of children with cancer fear impact of lack/ high turnover of staff

The head of Acreditar, Portugal’s Association of Parents and Friends of Children with Cancer, has highlighted that parents are worried about the “very high turnover” of health professionals in the country’s hospitals, fearing that it could jeopardise their children’s treatment. There are cases where there is “a notorious difficulty” in recruiting in certain areas, to replace health professionals who are leaving for various reasons, stressed Acreditar’s director general Margarida Cruz, adding that the association is in dialogue with the places where this happens. “So far the quality of treatment is not being jeopardised”, she admitted, but “this turnover and great difficulty in replacing people who leave in the meantime is threatening, from the point of view of being a concern for families.”