Cristóvão Norte, PSD deputy elected by the circle of Faro, wrote a letter to Adalberto Campos Fernandes, Minister of Health, defending the "uncontroversial need" for the creation of the Hospital Central do Algarve.
The PSD deputy recalls that, "since 2003, all governments, without exception, parties, deputies, mayors, orders, unions, among others", stressed that this new Hospital is "a fundamental infrastructure".
In his letter, Cristóvão Norte recalls the steps that were taken in the past towards this work. In 2005, the Government, then led by the socialist José Sócrates, “commissioned a study to the Porto School of Management, led by Professor Daniel Bessa, to organize the priorities for the construction of new hospitals”.
From this study, which analyzed costs, accessibility or the quality of the offer, the Hospital Central do Algarve was chosen as the second most urgent to be carried out. This list was approved by Order 12891/2006. Already before, in 2003, a strategic agreement had been signed that defined Parque das Cidades as the appropriate location for this new Hospital, recalls the Algarve deputy in his letter.
In 2007, the Hospital Central do Algarve was publicly presented by Prime Minister José Sócrates. «Negotiations were also opened with qualified consortia, but the process has not known progress, having been stopped since 2009,» says Cristóvão Norte.
In 2011, with the PSD and CDS in power, the Government suspended all planned hospitals.
Finally, the current Government included, in the 2017 State Budget, a new generation of Hospitals, which includes Hospital de Todos os Santos, in Lisbon, Hospital do Seixal and Hospital de Évora, but leaves out the one in Algarve .
"These hospitals were classified in 1st, 3rd and 4th places, respectively, in the 2006 technical study. Only the new Central Hospital of the Algarve is not moving forward, with the Minister of Health having issued statements in order to send its completion to a date after 2019 », stresses the deputy PSD. In September, the Social Democratic Party had criticized the situation.
For Cristóvão Norte, this decision is “detrimental to the interests of the region and the Algarve, but also of the country”.
This is because, in the opinion of the deputy orange, ignores, for example, «the importance of responding to an accelerated population growth and a notorious tourist evolution, which increasingly considers factors such as safety and available health care».
In the letter sent to the minister, some figures are also given to clarify Cristóvão Norte's opinion, such as the circumstance that the Hospital Center of the Algarve has «the second highest mortality rate of the 40 hospitals in the country or the worst average delay rate in the parents".
The social-democrat deputy also says he does not know the reasons that led Adalberto Campos Fernandes to be replaced by Manuel Delgado, Secretary of State for Health, who is visiting the Algarve today.
The letter ends with the deputy elected by the circle of Faro saying that he hopes that the minister “will be able to respond to the commitments he made last year, when the Board of Directors of the Hospital Center do Algarve took office, and that he would reassess the decision taken, in order to ensure that the new hospital Central do Algarve is realized».
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