Debt refers to transport of non-emergency patients
At a meeting with the Minister of Health today, the League of Portuguese Firefighters (LBP) called for the payment of debts relating to the transport of non-emergency patients, which have already reached €25 million (going back over a year).
Speaking to Lusa, LBP president António Nunes said the delays in payment are related to procedural issues, stressing that the new minister has been given three weeks to define a repayments plan.
“It’s unacceptable that today the debt owed by the health sector” could reach this dizzying figure, he admitted.
Payment for the transport of urgent patients is ensured by the National Institute of Medical Emergency (INEM) and has already been the subject of a memorandum of understanding between the League and the executive board of the SNS national health service.
(In this case, “what is needed is an increase in the amount paid, which is lower than the actual cost to the organisations”, he explained).
But the debt relating to the transport of non-urgent patients must start being paid, he told Lusa.
“We can’t expect much more when it comes to paying debts owed to humanitarian associations and fire brigades”, which are all facing cash flow difficulties because of these delays, he said – stressing that rather than just settling debts, the organisation wants to see a “regularity of payment that has not so far been achieved”.
The “disappearance” of Regional Health Administrations has added to problems – because now the responsibility for these payments has been left to Local Health Units, “which, in many cases, didn’t have this foreseen”.
António Nunes admits that a ‘central service’ could be created to concentrate payments, but, whatever is devised, “the fact is that there is a patient transport management system that has to be paid for…”
This “isn’t a problem from the medical point of view, it’s from the point of view of management, of procedural organisation, and we need the Ministry of Health to make clear decisions on this matter”, he said – nonetheless emerging from his first meeting with health minister Ana Paula Martins pronouncing himself ‘satisfied’.
“The balance was positive”, he told Lusa, adding: “We were promised a response” to demands.
Source: LUSA
