Amadora-Sintra being forced to let go of interns
One of Lisbon’s busiest hospitals is being forced to ‘let go’ of its medical interns because it is not deemed to have the ‘necessary conditions’ for their adequate training.
At issue is a ‘process that has been dragging on since September last year’ (ie long before the social democrat government took office).
According to reports, the Order of Physicians (Ordem dos Médicos) “considers the Fernando Fonseca Hospital (Amadora-Sintra) is unable to ensure the training of the 10 intern doctors, who will have to leave”.
The information followed a statement by the president of the Southern Regional Council of the Order, Paulo Simões.
He told a press conference yesterday that the organisations responsible for the Order consider the hospital does not have the conditions to ensure training, and that 10 specific training interns will have to leave, as well as general training interns “as they are not being guaranteed” the training (required) within the hospital.
Yet another political ‘hot potato’ lobbed into the complicated arena that is the country’s state health system, it was explained that it is the wish of the young doctors themselves to transfer to other hospitals – not a decision, per se, by the Order.
As Simões stressed, this is a situation that has been ‘dragging on’ since last September, in relation to the surgery service at the hospital, dogged by issues since two ‘whistleblowers’ to alleged malpractice are to be ‘re-incorporated into the team’ after a period in which they worked elsewhere.
At the time the decision was made to reincorporate the surgeons, warnings were made of ‘mass resignations’ which the hierarchy is described as ‘not having taken seriously’.
Since then, however, the ‘service has practically disappeared’ (meaning as many as 20 qualified surgeons of a team of 27 have abandoned the department), leading to a situation where there are no longer ‘conditions to guarantee training’ to the interns.
It will now be up to supervisory bodies to assess the surgical department’s conditions of care for the population, said Paulo Simões – suggesting that the issues are already having a knock on effect, particularly on the oncology service.
The future depends on the hospital’s ability to recruit specialists, he said – while the interns’ release date is “now a bureaucratic and administrative process”.
The reaction among senior surgeons to whistleblowers alleging malpractice has also seen a closing of ranks in the Algarve – in spite of so many independent testimonies detailing systemic failings.
It needs to be said, also, that the Amadora-Sintra case saw ‘expert medical opinion’ conclude that of the 22 alleged situations of malpractice, there was in fact, only one case that could be considered poor medical practice, along with a number of others in which “bad decisions were made” but those bad decisions “resulted in procedures that were carried out correctly”.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
Source material: SIC/ Lusa
