President Marcelo has today ‘enacted the creation of high performance centres in the field of obstetrics and gynecology, hoping that it will allow for systemic and lasting responses and that minimum consensus in labour terms will become a reality’.
What does this actually mean at a point when Portugal’s maternity wards have been operating on a stop-start basis throughout the year, and dozens of babies born in ambulances haring across the country trying to find a place that will take mothers in labour?
It means that the president has given the green light to a government proposal; a form of ‘pilot project’ for “the creation on an experimental basis of High-Performance Centers in the area of Obstetrics and Gynecology (CED-ObGin), within the scope of the National Health Service,” explains Lusa today, stressing that Marcelo has “issued warnings”.
The head of state hopes that “the minimum agreements invoked regarding working conditions will, in fact, correspond to reality.”
According to the same note of promulgation, President Marcelo also expects that the solution, “will be more than a short-term resource and open up systematic and lasting perspectives.”
This proposal emerged from a Council of Ministers in November, at which point the government said that it will begin operating ‘on an experimental basis in 2026’. When in 2026 has not been clarified, albeit SIC Notícias has referred to the beginning of next year.
The High-Performance Centers in the area of Obstetrics and Gynecology (CED-ObGin) will function as “autonomous management structures based on an innovative model, with a view to strengthening the attractiveness and retention of professionals”, says the blurb.
With the creation of these centres, the Ministry of Health intends to guarantee a list of “highly differentiated services, training, and research” within the SNS national health service, and to ensure that “professionals, upon completing their internships, want to stay” in the public health service. “Some may even be interested in returning,” health minister Ana Paula Martins has ventured.
Source: LUSA/ SIC Notícias
