“Freedom of expression doesn’t allow everything”
The ‘ULS’ (standing for local health unit) of Lisbon’s Santa Maria Hospital is prepared to initiate criminal proceedings against people who criticise the hospital, or its professionals, over social media.
Situations in which the ULS considers its “honour, reputation and good name” are put at stake will be reported to the courts and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The news comes from Observador today, which has had access to an internal order within the hospital that came into force almost 10 days ago.
In the order, Carlos Martins, president of the ULS’ board of directors, explains that what is at stake, considering that it is “absolutely unacceptable for the name of a doctor, a nurse or the service to be posted on social media, with criticisms that are states of mind but which end up denigrating the image of the professionals or the institution. When the technical quality, performance or results of a consultation or surgery are assessed in public, this is not at all correct”.
Martins explains that the order applies to “situations with names of people and services” not publications where, for example, citizens simply complain about the time they have had to wait to be seen, or the fact that the hospital has not rescheduled an appointment.
Equally excluded from this order to initiate proceedings are citizens who have already made a complaint through official channels, and may then have written about it over social media.
Martins justifies the decision with the need to protect both the institution and the professionals who work there, saying that the number of publications ‘denigrating’ the image of professionals has been increasing, which has led doctors and nurses themselves to question the ULS.
“We feel that these situations have been increasing and the professionals themselves were asking the legal office ‘what do we do? Today, social networks are a tool that people use without thinking twice and so we are doing this to assume our responsibility to defend the good name of professionals”, he told Observador – adding that he hopes not to have to initiate proceedings, of course.
The online approached Xavier Barreto, president of the Portuguese Association of Hospital Administrators, who said he is unaware that a mechanism similar to Santa Maria’s is in place in any other hospital in the country – stressing that health service users “have every right to evaluate the service provided to them and the conditions in which it was provided, expressing that evaluation” in presumably any way they care.
He added that the users of Portugal’s health service can be angry or upset; they can be in a lot of pain: “We have to be tolerant and patient enough to deal with that person…” Yes, the Portuguese legal system still prosecutes ‘defamation’ as a crime, and he accepted that health professionals should not feel defamed and affected by certain comments made by users.
Lawyer Sargoça da Matta was also approached by Observador for a comment, and has classified the order as “an attempt to intimidate (…) It is an attempt at fear-mongering that I don’t think will have much affect, for two reasons. If it’s aimed at patients and their families, who already do it, I don’t think they’ll stop doing it because of this order (…) Secondly, because we all know that defamation and slander are completely disregarded by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, leading to dismissals in the vast majority of cases, and also by the courts”.
Asked if the order poses a limit on citizens’ freedom of expression, ULS boss Carlos Martins argued that “freedom of expression ends when the honour and dignity of others is affected”.
“Freedom of expression doesn’t allow everything”, he said.
The Ministry of Health and the Executive Directorate of the National Health Service have also been approached for comments but refused to say anything.
This story comes nonetheless at a very sensitive time. The Resident will be reporting shortly on an exposé by independent online Página Um which claims Portugal’s medications authority INFARMED has “hidden” startling data on “sudden deaths” suffered by people who complied with authorities exhortations to be vaccinated against Covid-19. And wider afield, mainstream and social media have been abuzz over the pressure apparently applied by the United States government on Facebook during initial stages of the vaccine rollout ‘not to report other people’s truths and points of view. ND
Source material: Observador/SIC/ CNN/ Página Um (story to come)
