The PSD deputy Cristóvão Norte says that "it is necessary to impose the Algarve as a national priority in the National Health Service", following the announcement that the University Hospital Center of the Algarve was the institution that registered the greatest increase in the hiring of medical practitioners, in 2018.
In all, more than 8,2 million euros were spent to hire over 238 hours of service. The Algarvian parliamentarian even says that "the record of costs with medical workers" was broken.
“The services of medical practitioners, which should be the exception, are increasingly the rule. The cost to the State and to us taxpayers, for each hour, is 50 euros, while someone who has a link to the NHS, a specialist, receives 26 euros per hour», stated Cristóvão Norte.
“It is a brutal injustice and a perverse incentive for professionals to leave the NHS. Worse, everyone understands that this model does not allow the creation of solid teams, knowledge among professionals, stability in clinical options and monitoring of patients, in short, it worsens the quality of services provided», he added.
However, the Social Democratic deputy elected by the constituency of Faro he says he understands that “the CHUA, if there are no powerful mechanisms to secure doctors in the region and to the NHS, this, however undesirable it may be, is the best thing they can do. This is a problem that CHUA is unable to solve, but the Government does».
«It is necessary to impose the Algarve as the first national priority in Health. This model of hiring doctors occurs throughout the country, but it has a completely abusive and inadequate expression in the Algarve. The President of the Medical Association underlined that the annual budget spent at national level would ensure the hiring of 5000 doctors for the NHS», defended Cristóvão Norte.
“No more pious declarations in which it is said that you want to reduce the workload and actually increase them. The use of task workers should be reserved for exceptional situations, cases of increased demand due to a flu peak or in the summer, but no more than that because it disrupts teams, does not favor responsibility and has much greater difficulty in placing the patient at the center decisions, providing it with the follow-up that it needs,” he added.
The solutions to this «chronic and structural» problem of the Algarve's NHS require a new hospital and the creation of effective mechanisms to secure doctors in the region.
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