Statistics show how A&E closures coincide with increase in baby deaths
Newborns and babies under the age of one are continuing to die in Portugal in increasing numbers.
The writing has been on the wall for years. In 2022, the focus was on the increase in maternal mortality (which at the time was at the highest rate for 38 years) – but authorities have always been loathe to draw correlations with failures within the SNS public health service.
Now, this reluctance is becoming untenable. As tabloid Correio da Manhã points out, the increase in infant mortality in Portugal increased 20% in 2024 compared to 2023, according to the latest statistics from INE (national statistics institute). What could have changed in the two years? The answer appears to be more ‘what did not change?’: the incidents of – and frequency in – closures of obstetric/ gynecological emergency services continued, particularly in the Greater Lisbon areas (where the greatest number of infant deaths have been recorded).
In the past, sources for public health have tried to explain rising infant mortality within areas around the capital with the fact that this is one of the most densely populated regions in the country (ergo, it makes sense that more people generally die there).
But even this fails to convince when the percentage of deaths is higher than it is compared to the population anywhere else in the country.
There must be ‘another reason’: CM certainly sees it as the failing SNS health cover, as did the president of the Order of Physicians in January.
The paper refers to data: “In a year marked by various days with gynecological and obstetric emergency departments closed, namely in the Greater Lisbon area, due to a lack of doctors, the number of babies under the age one dying was 252, which corresponds to 3.0 per 1,000 births.
“In 2023, there were 210 deaths (2.5 per 1,000 births. Just as this paper revealed in December, infant mortality has hit its highest level since 2019, when the number of deaths on average came to 2.9 in 1,000 births.
“The Setúbal Peninsula (below Lisbon) is the region that raises most concerns, with a rate of infant mortality of 3.7 per 1,000 births, which is higher than the European average. It is in this region that the highest number of constraints on pregnancy care have been registered”, adds the paper – referring to the fact that health chiefs have created a commission to evaluate cases and “associated factors to mortality”, but that this has a time-span of three years, in which it sets out to “analyse demographic and socio-economic factors, health care sought and given, geographical area and “the environment in which cases of infant death occurred”.
Certainly CM has no illusions: “the degradation in health services, with maternity units and A&E departments closed, starts to leave lasting marks that rise above the mere ‘everyday’. It is an alarm bell that should concern all of us”.
Source: Correio da Manhã citing official government statistics
