In recent years, there have been many doctors leaving the National Health Service in the Algarve region, mainly from the units of the Hospital Center of the Algarve, but the new president of the Regional Health Administration believes he will be able to convince some of them to return and guarantees that he is already in negotiations for that to happen.
“I believe that some of the professionals who left [to the private sector] can return. I've even started contacts in this regard», he revealed, in an exclusive interview with Sul Informação, the new head of health in the Algarve, himself a doctor.
“There were many options for private hospitals, as they became much more attractive. It's because? It won't be so much for financial reasons, as they are not paying doctors for worlds and funds. It will be more for having new facilities, better working conditions, more recent equipment and another internal environment», he said.
In order to achieve this return of clinicians who have moved to the private sector, it is necessary to face the reasons why most doctors do not want to settle in the Algarve, which «they are not even financial, although these are always a backdrop».
So why don't doctors want to come to the Algarve? From the outset, for personal reasons, which stem from "the very structuring of the medical career", which leads many doctors, when they finish their training, to already have stable family and professional situations in the places where they were specializing.
On the other hand, there are “the problems that we all know that exist in the region's health units and some internal conflicts”, which have been denounced in the media.
“This is not attractive for a young doctor. People, if they can choose the place where they want to work, and many can, prefer a relatively quiet place and the possibility of working in what they like, with good equipment and dynamic teams», believes Paulo Morgado.
“It is necessary to give them working conditions and a peaceful environment where they can progress and make a career”, he summed up. For the president of ARS Algarve, this is a central point, because, "if the region is undercapitalized in terms of specialists and is always in the news, people are even scared." In other words, «the worse, the worse».
Paulo Morgado believes that this reality cannot be changed by the simple fact of changing the Board of Directors of Centro Hospitalar do Algarve. In the past, much of the blame for the bad internal climate in Algarve hospitals was carried out in the style of the former head of Algarve hospitals, Pedro Nunes, but his departure and the entry of new protagonists did not end with the discontent between the medical profession and , in reality, little has changed.
«From what I understand, the professionals don't even pose big problems in the relationship with the Board of Directors, they think that things don't move, they don't happen. And they are right in what they say. Hence, we think that things need to change, that the strategy has to be different. There was a time when it was said that Dr. Pedro Nunes' posture was the cause of all this. Maybe it contributed, but I think it goes deeper than that. It is a problem of organization and management», defends Paulo Morgado.
Thus, the CHA has its days numbered (in this case, the weeks), to make room for the University Hospital Center of the Algarve (CHUA). The structure to be created will have four poles (the hospitals of Faro and Portimão/Lagos, the Center for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation of the South and the University of Algarve) and, as assured by the new president of the ARS Algarve, foresees an increase in the autonomy of hospitals, which will have «a manager and clinical and nursing governance separate'.
Paulo Morgado argued that this model, with a strong university dimension, is “the only way” to put the Algarve's National Health Service on track. And he even gives the example of a young neurosurgeon from Lisbon, who left the hospital where he worked, in Lisbon, to sign a contract with the CHA, “because this connection to the University of Algarve is something that attracts him”. "He wants to finish his PhD here and work at the Faculty of Medicine [UAlg's Department of Biomedical Sciences]," he said, in the interview with Sul Informação.
CHUA should also bring news in terms of services provided in different hospitals. The president of the ARS intends to return the skills that Hospital de Portimão lost, after the merger of the Algarve hospitals, in 2011, and to keep the Hospital de Lagos open. In the latter case, even the possibility of moving it to new premises is open..
Also important, in Paulo Morgado's view, is that the Hospital Central do Algarve (HCA) project should not be dropped. “I still think the HCA makes sense. I don't think it's something you can do in a year or two, but you have to keep it on the horizon. Within the scope of CHUA, and to give it a real body, it makes sense for the Algarve to have a University Hospital», he said.
«If we have the land, advanced studies, several stones thrown, many visits – we don't want more visits, that's enough (laughs) – we have to work seriously, so that, in a few years, the Algarve can have a modern hospital unit . Because the Hospital of Faro, I'm sorry, but it's totally inadequate. Patches have been made, but it is an obsolete structure, which is not attractive either», concluded the president of the Regional Health Administration.
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