Vila de Alcoutim «has been without doctors for two months», denounced the Council of this municipality in the interior of the Algarve.
The municipality has reached an agreement with the Algarve Regional Health Administration (ARS) to hire a clinician to guarantee the functioning of the local Family Health Unit, but ended up seeing the public institute denying this solution, to two days after signing the contract, considering that the measure “would not be well regarded”.
The ARS do Algarve, accused the Alcoutenejo municipality, did not let the situation resolve, but it also does not seem close to finding a solution itself.
Although, at first, he guaranteed the hiring of a doctor, under the provision of services, at the time the contract had to be renewed, in January, he did not do so, "because of lack of funds to hire, now for lack of authorization of the expenditure by the Ministry of Finance, in a lengthy and bureaucratic process».
It was to unblock this situation that the municipality of Alcoutim offered to pay for the hiring of the doctor itself.
«Having the ARS do Algarve agreed to this proposal, the mayor of Alcoutim [Osvaldo Gonçalves] arranged for the continuity of the health professional who had been employed until the end of December, having been authorized to appoint him. Two days before the beginning of the provision of services, the mayor was contacted by ACES do Sotavento, to realize that the solution found was not being very well regarded and that it would not be possible to authorize it, so we would have to wait that the solution came from the Algarve's own ARS», described the municipality.
«Today, more than four months after the beginning of this problem, there is no temporary or permanent solution, and it is questionable, if in fact, anyone is really concerned with the provision of primary health care to the population besides the mayor of Alcoutim. No one with common sense can understand this slowness in solving the problem and the citizens of Alcoutim do not accept that the crisis is an excuse for everything», concluded the Chamber of Alcoutim.
According to the municipality, the origin of the problem dates back to October 2015, when "several misfortunes compromised the attendance of the two doctors who provided such services."
«We were dependent on the only doctor available, located more than thirty kilometers away in the Martim Longo Health Extension, where the population of the parishes of Martim Longo and Vaqueiros is served, after the unexpected and unjustifiable closure of the Vaqueiros Health Extension in October 2013”, framed.
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