Long waiting lists in the state health system are nothing new – but four hospitals in the north are trying valiantly to ring the changes before more people die waiting for surgery.
The focus here is on ‘cardiac patients’.
Porto’s Santo António hospital is calling for the creation of a new surgical centre, explaining that the current model – referring patients to hospitals in Vila Nova de Gaia, Porto and, more recently, Braga – is not good enough. Patients are waiting too long for surgeries – some dying as they wait; others developing further complications due to the delay in their treatment.
The hospital stresses that “the necessary technical competences” to run such a centre are in place. It is simply a question of changing the protocols.
Santo António’s position has been endorsed by three other hospitals with cardiology departments, in Vila Real, Matosinhos and Penafiel.
A letter signed by all four has been sent to health minister Ana Paula Martins, writes Diário de Notícias.
Reports refer to Gaia Hospital having 171 patients waiting for surgery at the moment. Their average waiting time being “a little more than two months”.
One of the stumbling blocks in this appeal is that, according an opinion by the Order of Physician’s Specialist College of Cardiothoracic Surgery, the current network that Portugal operates “is adequate”.
It is a question of how “adequate” is interpreted: Porto’s Santo António hospital thinks that “adequate” needs to go a lot further.
Source material: SIC Notícias/ Diário de Notícias
