‘Health service directorate’ was put in place by last government
After all the build-up about the ‘new management tier’ of Portugal’s State health service – and how it would ‘revolutionise’ the creaking system incapable of meeting demands – its CEO Fernando Araújo has tendered his resignation – and that of his entire department – saying he “doesn’t want to be an obstacle” to the policies and measures the country’s new government will be proposing (in order to revolutionise the creaking system incapable of meeting demands).
Said a statement from Araújo released yesterday: “Respecting the principle of institutional loyalty, I will submit to the Minister of Health, together with the team I lead, my resignation from the post of executive director of the National Health Service.”
According to the outgoing CEO, this “difficult decision” will allow the new government to “implement the policies and measures it deems necessary, with the speed required, preventing the current executive board (known by the initials DE-SNS) from being considered an obstacle to their realisation”.
“The DE-SNS is a technical body, a public institute of the State, which has to be above political issues or party agendas, and which carries out public policies determined by the Government,” he emphasised.
The executive board only began its work last year, following the new National Health Service (SNS) statute proposed by then minister Marta Temido.
According to Fernando Araújo, in the “first and only meeting we (have) had” with the new government, the DE-SNS said it was open to the continuity of functions, in the sense of finalising current reform, but putting itself at the “disposal of the new government team, if it wanted to change the policies and faces of the system”.
“We made it clear that we were not seeking legal compensation. Each member of the team has a previous professional life, four of us in the NHS, one in the Ministry of Finance and another in private practice, and we did not intend to encumber the public good under any circumstances,” said the doctor
Fernando Araújo also said that he requested that the resignation of the executive board take effect the day after the presentation of the activity report required by the ministry, which he claims he learnt about “by email at the same time that it was published in the media”.
“We will not shy away from presenting the requested document, which we have already started to prepare – not least because we believe that it is not only a responsibility, but also a duty, to expose the results of the work carried out, so that it can be scrutinised, something that is healthy in public life,” he stressed.
In a lengthy statement, Fernando Araújo said that he and his team are leaving with the realisation that “not everything that had been planned” was done and that “mistakes were certainly made”, but that “time was always short to carry out a reform of this scale.
“However, the first signs are quite good and more favourable than the forecasts that had initially been included in the planning instruments,” he said.
According to his statement, Fernando Araújo will now “peacefully” return to his care, teaching and research activities as an SNS doctor and university professor.
After thanking the professionals with whom he worked for their availability and commitment, Fernando Araújo left a “personal word of thanks to the last government” and to the President of the Republic, “for all the support shown from day one, personally and publicly”, which he says he treasures “with great honour and respect”.
Source material: LUSA
