The Parliamentary Group of the PCP wants to know if the Government is preparing the closing of the health extensions of Alferce and Marmelete (municipality of Monchique) and how it justifies this decision.
In a petition addressed to the Ministry of Health, the communists stress that, "if such intention were to materialize, it would represent an unacceptable deterioration in the quality of health care provided to a very aging population, spread over a county with an area of 400 km2 in that the public transport network is almost non-existent'.
The closure of the health extensions in Alferce and Marmelete “would, in some cases, force users to travel around 100 km (round trip) to the Personalized Health Care Unit in Monchique, jeopardizing the right to protection of health, enshrined in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic. Difficulty in accessing health care and the lack of medical and nursing care could even put the very lives of older users at risk», defend the PCP deputies.
In its application, the Communist Parliamentary Group also emphasizes that «the mountain regions of the Algarve have been heavily penalized for a policy of dismantling public services, with the closing of schools, health extensions, CTT stations and now, also of the finance offices and the court of Monchique».
This policy, "allied to a wrong development model that invested almost exclusively in sun and sea tourism and concentrated most investments on the coast, contributed to the desertification of the territory, the abandonment of economic activities and the impoverishment of populations," they say. still the communists.
"The government policy of closing public services and attacking the social functions of the State leads to the worsening of the living conditions of the populations, in addition to accelerating the processes of desertification and depopulation of the interior regions of the country and deepening the already existing asymmetries between the coast and the interior”, they add.
On the other hand, underlines the Parliamentary Group, «contrary to what the Government's propaganda tries to make us believe, its policy of closure of public services does not aim at rationalizing the supply of the public network, adapting it to the needs of the population. The unconfessed objective of the Government and the Troika is the destruction of the State's social functions – in health, education and social security – aiming to provide new business areas for the private sector at the expense of conditioning and even excluding access to fundamental rights for the majority of the population'.
The communists argue that “the idea defended by the Government that the degradation of public accounts was due, among other factors, to the gradual increase in expenditure on improving the social functions of the State and public services, is also false. The degradation of public accounts is due, rather, to a policy of destruction of national production, wrong public investment options, the alienation of resources and strategic assets to large national and international capital, and the scandalous looting of the treasury and heritage in favor of banks and large economic groups'.
Thus, the Parliamentary Group of the PCP questioned the Ministry of Health about its intentions regarding the health extensions of Alferce and Marmelete.
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