The protocol to be signed between the municipality of Alcoutim and the Regional Health Administration (ARS) of the Algarve, which will ensure the operation and maintenance of the recently inaugurated Vaqueiros Health Extension, was approved this Wednesday, at a Chamber Meeting.
the health unit reopened at the end of 2017 in the building of the former Vaqueiros Primary School, «granted free of charge by the Municipality of Alcoutim to the ARS after completion of conversion works fully supported by the municipality», recalled the Municipality of Alcoutim.
Under the protocol that will be signed, «ARS undertakes to ensure the provision of primary health care through a doctor and/or nurse on at least one day a week and to contract, by paying the respective payment, of water, electricity and telephone».
The public entity responsible for the health sector, at regional level, "also undertakes to carry out the maintenance, conservation and repairs of installations and networks of electricity, communications, water and sewage, excluding the septic tank, as well as transferred equipment" .
«The municipality of Alcoutim is responsible for the maintenance, conservation and repair of the entire property, as well as the exterior repairs, in collaboration with the Parish Council, which is also responsible for cleaning the entire building assigned», according to the City Council of Alocutim.
This health unit serves about 350 users. In 2013, ARS do Algarve decided to close it, claiming that the facilities did not have the necessary conditions, which “forced users of the parish of Vaqueiros, mostly elderly, to go to the Health Extension of Martim Longo”.
The closing of the health unit was not accepted by the population, which manifested itself in Faro, in front of the ARS headquarters, still in 2013. A few weeks later, the president of the Chamber of Alcoutim Osvaldo Gonçalves assured the Sul Informação and to Rádio Universitária do Algarve, which was willing to finance the reopening of this unit., what came to happen four years later.
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