Gandra d’Almeida outed for working two (highly paid) public sector jobs at same time
Portugal’s AD government is taking flak this weekend after an investigation by SIC reported that the current executive director of the SNS state health service has been claiming two salaries (and working two jobs within the public sector) at the same time.
According to SIC, Gandra d’Almeida “accumulated the functions of director of INEM in the north, with those of being a weekend ‘agency doctor’ (doctors paid considerably more than those employed by the state) in the A&E departments of Faro and Portimão hospitals for “more than two years”.
This kind of ‘dual employment’ contravenes the law, and is seen as particularly ‘tacky’ in that public sector unions consider the use of agency doctors to be undermining the sustainability of the state health service. To have a director of a public sector entity thus working privately, supplying services to the state, is just beyond acceptable.
It hasn’t helped that, according to SIC, Gandra d’Almeida received permission to accumulate his duties at INEM with “private, unpaid medical practice”, which “was not the case. According to the Algarve Local Health Unit (Unidade Local de Saúde do Algarve), Gandra d’Almeida received €298,000 for the weekend shifts in public hospital emergency rooms between 2021 and 2024.
“To avoid receiving (the money) directly, he set up a company with his wife, of which he was the manager and through which he invoiced the hospitals for the hours worked at €50 per hour, starting to receive €57 per hour in 2024”.
As lawyer Paulo Veiga e Moura, an administrative law specialist explained, the bottom line is that Gandra d’Almeida “had an authorisation to accumulate private functions when in fact he accumulated public functions” which is against the law. The fact that he did it through a company “doesn’t change anything from a legal point of view”, since the company belongs to him….
Within hours of SIC’s report being broadcast, Gandra d’Almeida had tendered his resignation. But the damage was done. All opposition parties are pointing at the government being ‘further fragilised’ by being unable to ensure stability in the health sector.
PS Socialists, Livre, PCP communists, Bloco de Esquerda and CHEGA, have all weighed into the attack, with the government saying none of it is as serious as they are making out, and a new executive director will be found “soon”.
The problem with all this unpleasantness is that since AD took the reins of the health service, there have been three exits by ‘SNS executive directors’ in less than 10 months.
As for Gandra d’Almeida, he has delivered a statement to the press saying that SIC’s report contained “inaccuracies and falsehoods” that damage his good name.
Mr d’Almeida’s good name is already under investigation by IGAS (the general inspectorate of health activities) due to an anonymous complaint that accused him of bypassing other patients on a waiting list for plastic surgery at Gaia Hospital. He has denied the existence of any irregularity, guaranteeing that “everything was done according to the rules”.
IGAS will now be investigating this latest situation.
