Groundhog Monday brings the news that yet another baby has been born in an ambulance, and yet another young man has been shot in Amadora (Greater Lisbon).
Media outlets bring these regular snippets of life (largely in major urban centres/ Greater Lisbon) without commenting on the fact that they just keep on coming.
It is left to ‘comments over social media’ to highlight the implications of these events.
Thus, to the birth of baby Bruna yesterday, in an ambulance presumably racing to find an available hospital. Bruna is the 60th baby to have been born this year in such circumstances – and that is leaving out the infants delivered ‘in the street’, of which there have now been two.
Naturally, the Bombeiros Voluntários da Trafaria who ‘turned midwives’ for the occasion have posted the kindest and most uplifting message possible, but as one commentator points out, we should not be normalising this as “a happy story”: “It is a national disgrace. A woman who gives birth in an ambulance is not a symbol of heroism; it is proof that the system has collapsed and is not serving the people who need it most.
“While firefighters struggle to cover up the failures of the state, those in power continue to make empty promises and speeches.
“There is nothing normal or acceptable about being born without resources, without means, without dignity.
“Firefighters are heroes (but) it is shameful that a country depends on them to do what the state should guarantee”.
Health minister Ana Paula Martins has repeatedly said the situation of repeated ambulance births is not ideal but she appears to think it is on the wane…
To shootings in Amadora, which have been happening in recent days on an alarming basis. Early on Sunday morning, a 19-year-old stumbled in clear distress out of a car that had driven up to the hospital’s emergency unit at high speed at 9.25am.
No sooner had the youth semi-collapsed on the ground, than the car made off as quickly as it had arrived.
The young man was rushed inside. He underwent emergency surgery and is believed to be ‘on the mend’. According to reports, he had (bullet) wounds to his stomach.
This was shooting victim number four of the last week – and it was fairly quickly followed by victim number five: a 27-year-old, again ‘self-admitted’ in the early hours of this morning to the same Amadora-Sintra hospital, this time with a bullet wound to his knee. It is understood generally that the 27-year-old and the 19-year-old will have been injured in the ‘same situation’, or at least, as a result of the same situation: the problem (usually) is that the victims do not want to talk about how they received their injuries…
To recap, last Wednesday, a young man was ‘seriously injured’ in a shooting in Cova da Moura, Amadora and the night before two other young men were shot, one in the chest, the other in the legs and one arm, also in Amadora.
This kind of news is generally given ‘singly’; dots are rarely joined – but the last week has been an exception, and thus stories have referred to ‘what came before’.
Comments over social media attest to the fact that ‘actually’ shootings in Greater Lisbon are becoming ‘the norm’: indeed, almost no-one reacts anymore, says one commentator, because they have become “banal, as they have in Rio do Janeiro, or São Paulo”. According to this particular commentator, the streets of Greater Lisbon are becoming “a little Brazil”.
Sources: LUSA/ SIC/ Facebook
