Solutions to be announced today
Portugal’s medical emergency services are being increasingly compromised by the work-to-rule over overtime by INEM technicians – and health minister Ana Paula Martins is “going to react”, writes Expresso.
Emergency solutions will be announced today, says the paper.
“The refusal of pre-hospital emergency technicians to work overtime at INEM will continue indefinitely and the shortcomings in the rescue services are increasing. The report of three fatal cases due to an alleged delay in the dispatch of resources by the Emergency Medical Services in the first week of the strike has forced the Minister of Health to take S.O.S. measures. The solutions are not yet known, but the ministerial office has told Expresso that the announcement will be made this Wednesday”.
In her statements on the crisis, Ms Martins said that she is working to create “alternative lines of support”. In the meantime, “more available means, more ambulances” have been guaranteed. Expresso suggests in terms of ambulances “a dozen more” have been brought in.
Elsewhere, firefighters have already warned that the overload their departments are experiencing – after people have been told to contact them direct, rather than go through the official CODU channels – is leading to a “collapse of the patient triage system”.
Yesterday, Carlos Cortes, president of the Ordem dos Médicos (Order of Physicians), also called for concrete intervention from the minister, stressing that the constraints at INEM should be the minister’s “first concern”.
Speaking to RTP news, Cortes said that INEM is “going through very serious, structural problems”; it is an “absolute priority” area for intervention by the minister: “It’s a situation of enormous concern.”
As for the technicians, ANTEM – the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians – has already said it is filing a complaint with the EU Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights because it believes that Emergency Medical Services in Portugal do not guarantee the right to health provided for in the Constitution. “Successive governments” have been accused of inertia in the face of a system that “profoundly contradicts the most basic practices and management methods of any effective, patient-focused Emergency Medical Service”.
In the meantime, INEM’s management has made it known that more than 40 emergency services have already been paralysed due to the strike and that more than a hundred calls have gone unanswered, writes Expresso.
Source material: Expresso
