José Luís Carneiro intends to “validate legislative commitment”
On a day when doctors’ syndicates once again get around the table with a minister who has already said he can’t see the point of any kind of agreement at this late stage in the government’s reign, leadership candidate José Luís Carneiro has come up with an olive branch.
He has said that he intends to validate a legislative commitment with the Order of Physicians, containing a structured response on issues such as investment in infrastructures and professional dignification.
This political project was conveyed at the end of a meeting in Lisbon requested by the Order’s president Carlos Cortes. With Mr Carneiro were fellow MPs Maria Antónia Almeida Santos and Lacerda Sales, equally seen as ‘middle of the road’ Socialists, rather than the ‘radical left’, personified by ‘the other candidate’ in the current ‘race for PS leadership’, former infrastructure minister Pedro Nuno Santos.
Quizzed about the current ‘impasse’ between the outgoing government and doctors’ syndicates, José Luís Carneiro played it safe. He “defended reforms underway (…) asked syndicates for flexibility in negotiations and emphasised the efforts being made not only by health minister Manuel Pizarro, but the prime minister, António Costa, and the minister of finance, Fernando Medina – the latter being one of his supporters” in the bid for Socialist leadership, writes Lusa.
But he went a little further, emphasising a medium-term project for health which he discussed today with Carlos Cortes.
Cortes is now going to sound out members of his own management structure, “but we have validated a principle: a commitment for the legislature that includes the variable associated with investment in infrastructures and the conditions for dignifying professional activity,” said Mr Carneiro – also promising to pay attention to training conditions throughout doctors’ professional career, “with a view to carrying out research activities and training the younger generations.
“In recent days, I have been making agreements in principle with partner institutions of the SNS (Portuguese State health service). I have seen that there is an agreement in principle with social sector institutions to increase consultations by 50% and to increase surgeries and diagnostic tests. We also want to integrate mental health and dementia care into the long-term care network, because there is infrastructural and human resources capacity to respond,” he said.
Mr Carneiro also emphasised the importance of the “Back Home” initiative, in which “social development institutions are able to provide conditions for around 300 elderly people who are in hospitals due to lack of family or social support.
“We have to be able to work together to enhance the proximity response, making the health centre and the family doctor the first and most important response – a response that must diversify and become stronger with local communities, through a link between health and social security,” he elaborated.
On this last point, José Luís Carneiro pointed out that the system must also be based on “flexibility in terms of contractualisation with regions”, since they have different situations in social terms.
It was one of the most constructive political ‘stories’ so far today, in yet another day marked by politicians criticising each other’s ideas, and marking electoral ground. ND
