O “Care” inter-municipal health care program, launched by the municipalities of Vila Real de Santo António and Olhão, has already brought the vision back to about two hundred people in the two municipalities, solving the eye problems of many people in the Algarve who had been waiting for more than four years for a first consultation with the National Service of Health.
“The quick and personalized response to people's problems is the reason for the success of this program which, in just over half a year, ended the waiting lists of people from Vila Real who were desperate for an eye consultation or surgery. In a few months, we carried out many more consultations than the Hospital Central do Algarve itself», says Luís Gomes, Mayor of Vila Real de Santo António.
Proof of this success are also the more than 4000 consultations carried out by «Care» in the two municipalities, a number never before registered by any local health program and which allowed the detection of serious pathologies that prevented blindness.
«In addition to having restored vision and quality of life to many people through the performance of two hundred surgeries for cataracts and other pathologies, here there is also a focus on prevention. If it weren't for this program, many people would continue to be at serious risk of becoming blind due to complications such as glaucoma or retinal detachment», highlights Luís Gomes.
Speed is, in fact, one of the qualities that characterize this project: from scheduling an appointment to diagnosis or referral to surgery, the process takes just over a month, putting an end to the wait for many residents who had been waiting for four or five years for a first visit to the National Health Service.
The social aspect is another matrix of “Caring”, which is preferentially aimed at people with income below the national minimum wage or who do not have the economic capacity to support treatment in a private unit. For this reason, the program is developed by the Social Action Services of the two municipalities, which carry out the screening and registration of users.
“Right now, there is no one in VRSA who does not have economic capacity. This is clearly a sign that the project is an example for the country and the region and fulfills the matrix that characterizes our social policies», continues the Vila Realense mayor.
In order to broaden its social mission, "Care" should be gradually extended to schools, with the VRSA municipality intending to carry out an ophthalmological screening of all students in the municipality, similarly to what has already been done with municipal and IPSS employees. locations.
To publicize the program among the elderly population, the project teams are also making door-to-door visits in rural towns in the municipality of VRSA or in day centers.
About the «Care» program
O 'Care' program initiates an innovative way of sharing resources, based on proximity policies, providing a rapid response to population health problems.
In this first phase, it focuses on pathologies related to ophthalmology, taking into account the increase in waiting lists in this specialty in the south of the country.
The network costs are shared by the municipalities of VRSA and Olhão, which have at their service a medical team that performs the diagnosis and triage of patients. In the future, “Care” will be extended to other specialties, being able to add more councils to this health care network and take advantage of economies of scale.
The municipality of VRSA was a pioneer in sending patients to Cuba in 2007, when, in Portugal, it was expected 4 years to get an ophthalmology consultation and approximately 8 years for a cataract operation.
Currently, all treatments are carried out in Portugal, although the program continues to have the know-how of the Health Services of the Republic of Cuba.
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