Firefighters threaten mutiny; emergency medical technicians make demands
Firefighters are threatening to stop operating INEM ambulances from next Wednesday unless millions of euros due to them for ‘emergency medical transport’ are paid. And while this demand, on its own, raises the spectre of a country held to ransom over an intrinsic necessity to ensure ‘health’, if not survival, ANTEM, the national association of emergency medical technicians, has gone a step further.
In a statement released yesterday, ANTEM accuses INEM of essentially sanctioning cheating in assessment tests for ambulance crew – meaning that people are being accepted onto courses when they aren’t qualified for them.
Calling for the immediate resignation of INEM president Sérgio Janeiro, ANTEM stresses it is the minimum that should be done in order to ‘recover public trust’.
“In the name of the public interest, the dignity of pre-hospital activity and the safety of users of the health system, any inertia or complacency in this matter will be morally indefensible and institutionally negligent”, says ANTEM.
Coinciding with the recent statement by the president of a company ‘blamed’ for not having requisite helicopter cover ready for the summer, things could hardly get any worse for INEM, and the Ministry of Health that oversees it.
ANTEM is wholly focused on what it sees as the “irreversible compromise” of assessment instruments, which put at risk “the quality, and reliability of the training of professionals and volunteers (who come into) direct contact with critical and life-threatening situations”.
So concerned is ANTEM about what it has heard about lapses in training, that it wants “the immediate suspension of ongoing courses, and an independent and external audit, with a view to verifying the integrity of ongoing evaluation processes”.
The association is also pushing for the audit to identify “possible internal and external control failures”.
This is a beef that has been going for some months, if not more. It has been powered by the findings last December by IGAS (the general inspectorate of health systems) which concluded that there are pre-hospital emergency technicians at INEM “who enter the career without having the necessary requirements”.
IGAS stated that on the basis of an audit requested by the minister of health, it found INEM was “unable to ensure that training courses for pre-hospital emergency technicians were carried out under the terms in which they were approved”.
Meantime, firefighters are bristling for a showdown: again, this is an issue that has been grinding on for months, if not years, but which has ‘suddenly come to a head’.
Yesterday, the League of Portuguese Firefighters “demanded that the government pay off its pre-hospital emergency service debts by Wednesday”. If not, the service will suspend the use of INEM ambulances the following Friday (July 25).
Explains state news agenct Lusa: “the resolution was unanimously approved at the meeting of the National Council of the League of Portuguese Firefighters (LBP), in protest to delays in payments by the Ministry of Health”.
Speaking to Lusa, António Nunes, president of LBP, stressed “there is no forecast of payment in sight”, so if everything remains the same, next Friday, 25 July, the fire brigades will refuse to use INEM ambulances assigned to them, at greater cost to the state.
“The Ministry of Health, and INEM in particular, is having delays in paying for the services carried out by fire brigades in the context of pre-hospital emergencies and this is creating a lot of difficulties for fire stations – and, despite INEM’s intentions to make these payments, this hasn’t happened,” Nunes explained.
An account sent in May for services from February, March and April still hasn’t been paid, he said, despite the Ministry of Health having guaranteed there was an agreement with the Ministry of Finance to do so.
Source material: LUSA
