In yet another of its ‘exclusives’ which can have wide-reaching implications, tabloid Correio da Manhã today runs with a story about the secretary of state for health management ostensibly ‘favouring the hospital of a friend’.
The secretary of state in question – Francisco Rocha Gonçalves – has not denied his friendship with the director of surgery at Porto’s Santo António Hospital, Eurico Castro Alves, but he insists that he acted in “total impartiality and independence”.
These are CM’s words: “The secretary of state for health management who opened the door to the creation of the Cardiac Surgery department at the Local Health Unit of Santo António, in Porto, has a profound and long-standing friendship with Eurico Castro Alves. The pair holidayed together, last summer, in the Algarve.”
According to the paper, due to Gonçalves’ “close personal friendship and relationship with the director of surgery at Santo António” – and as stipulated in “article 73, (1)(d) of the Code of Administrative Procedure – he “should have requested to be excused from participating in the procedure for the creation of this surgical unit”.
Gonçalves disagrees: “In the performance of my duties, I act with complete impartiality and independence, as required by law, ensuring that the ultimate aim of every action I take is the exclusive pursuit of the public interest,” he told CM.
When asked whether he had spent holidays with Castro Alves in the Algarve last summer – “and if those holidays were in Vilamoura, where the director of surgery has a house, the secretary of state did not answer,” the paper adds.
“According to article 73, (1)(d) of the Code of Administrative Procedure, if there is great intimacy between the holder of public office and the person with a direct interest in a procedure or act, the holder of public office should request to be excused from participating in the procedure,” says CM – pointing out that “the position of Rocha Gonçalves contrasts with the ethical criteria set by the prime minister in parliament on February, 2025 (as a result of the Spinumviva case, revealed by CM) when he assumed his friendship with the owners of Solverde (casinos and hotels group).”
At the time, the prime minister said: “It is public: I am a personal friend of the shareholders of this company. Therefore I will always be prohibited – and I apply these restrictions on myself – from participating in any decision that directly affects this business.”
Eurico Castro Alves, meantime, was the coordinator of the Emergency Plan for the Transformation of the Health Service, presented by Luís Montenegro’s first government, writes CM – and has been referred to as a “shadow minister of health”, due to the influence he has over this ministry.
As for the ministry, it is “hiding” the technical appraisal used by both Rocha Gonçalves and the other health secretary, Ana Povo, to push forwards with the creation of the unit of cardiac surgery, claims the paper.
Both the health ministry and the general directorate of health have failed to answer CM’s questions on this technical appraisal.
This is clearly a(nother) situation that opposition parties could latch onto.
João Paulo Batalha, one of the country’s ‘voices for transparency’, and a founder of the NGO Frente Cívica, says that both secretaries of state in this instance should have asked to be recused from the decision-making: Rocha Gonçalves due to his long-standing friendship with Castro Alves, and Ana Povo (secretary of state for health) because she was a cardiac surgeon at Santo António before she took office (and is expected to return there once she has ceased her functions in government).
Source material: Correio da Manhã
