There is a shortage of «about a thousand nurses in the National Health Service (SNS) in the Algarve», a shortage that can cost the country much more money than if there were more professionals hired.
This is guaranteed by Sérgio Branco, president of the Southern section of the Ordem dos Enfermeiros, who believes that the strategy that has been adopted in Portugal of heavy investment at the hospital level "is wrong" and that the ideal would be to bet on primary health care, to avoid “the emergency traffic jam” and the consequent increase in health expenditure.
In a conversation with the Sul Informação and with University Radio of Algarve RUA FM (102.7 FM), as a guest on the show Impressions, the leader of the Order outlined a worrying scenario, at a regional level, but also nationally, with regard to the number of nurses in short supply, while at the same time defending a change in strategy in the NHS.
“What we want is for there to be quality in the services provided to the population. At this moment, with the lack of nurses that is evident both in Primary Health Care and in hospitals, we have an inability to guarantee the quality of the service and, in many clinical contexts, what exists does not even touch quality, essentially has the do with the survival of the users who go there», he illustrated.
“What the scientific evidence tells us is that any embezzlement in terms of nursing care translates into an increase in morbidity, disease and also death. That's what we have to wait when there aren't the necessary nurses», he guaranteed.
In Sérgio Branco's view, it is urgent to invest more in the area of Primary Health Care, as these aim “not only to treat the disease, but above all to prevent disease and promote health”.
“By empowering people, promoting health and preventing disease, we would have fewer users needing hospital care. But what we see is a reduced investment at this level», he considered. And it is because there is no adequate response upstream that "we are witnessing a bottleneck in hospital care", believes the regional leader of the Ordem dos Enfermeiros.
“What we have been doing, wrongly, is investing at the hospital level, when the investment has to go upstream and downstream of hospital care. We have considered that the disease prevails and that it is the disease that we have to focus on, as all the strategies and all the evidence in health demonstrate that the main investment must be in health promotion», he defended.
“It was important to have greater investment upstream, in Primary Health Care, but also downstream, in what is post-hospital care, at the level of homes for the elderly and nursing homes. Although we have laws that define the number of nurses needed for these institutions, what we have is an embezzlement of assistance», he reinforced.
And the money should be invested in care teams, which bring together doctors, nurses, technicians and operational assistants, since «investing everything in a single professional group [doctors] does not seem to me to be a good strategy». “But we have to understand whether this financial hurdle is pertinent. Because what we have to consider is whether this investment that is necessary translates into gains for health», he said.
Also because this investment will translate into future savings. With an adequate number of nurses, «we have less disease, we have fewer patients, we have fewer deaths, less complex patients and a series of benefits that we are currently unable to protect», believes Sérgio Branco.
The problem of the lack of nurses is not exclusive to the Algarve, but transversal to the whole country, where the Order points to the lack of «30 nurses». By way of comparison, there are currently around 70 of these health professionals working in the NHS.
“What we proposed to the Government was the phased contracting, as we are aware of the financial limitations. Our proposal is to hire 3 nurses a year, over ten years», he said.
This effort would have to be consistent, as opposed to what happens now, taking into account that, despite opening competitive examinations, from time to time, to hire nurses, the global number of this type of professionals in the National Health Service has increased «a lot gradually”, the Algarve being no exception.
“These contracts never have as their main objective the increase of care. Above all, they aim to replace other professionals who, for their own reasons, left the hospital. On the other hand, it has to do with the requalification of professional contracts, that is, placing those with precarious contracts on the staff. They never fill the real needs of these organizations, namely here at CHA», revealed Sérgio Branco.
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