Left Bloc deputies want "better working conditions for health professionals in the Algarve" and questioned the Ministry of Health about the measures it is taking to protect those in the front lines of the fight against Covid-19.
In a question that Algarve's elected deputy João Vasconcelos and his bench colleague Moisés Ferreira, the BE expressed a set of concerns of nurses and other health professionals in the Algarve region, which deserve intervention by the Government, Health authorities and ARS Algarve, in order to guarantee this special protection to professionals who, on a daily basis, struggle to take care of all the people in need.
According to this party, several conditions must be ensured, from the outset "that personal protection equipment is not exhausted and that health professionals have access to this equipment in the necessary quantity".
On the other hand, it is also necessary to «strengthen the existence of PPE and uniforms, as well as the washing and sterilization of material that can be reused, in health centers where Dedicated Areas to Covid19 were created», as well as «protecting professionals especially vulnerable to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, either for reasons of age or for an underlying clinical situation, affecting them, whenever possible, to professional tasks where they are not in direct contact with the virus».
Blockists also say it is necessary to suspend the practice of biometric registration, "since this practice can potentiate infection and cause an outbreak among health professionals", and the reinforcement and guarantee "of the full functioning of the Occupational Health Service of the University Hospital Center of the Algarve/CHUA and of the Regional Health Administration of the Algarve/ARS, either for the identification of professionals at risk, or for active surveillance of situations that may have been in contact with the virus, even if asymptomatic, or to certify professional illness whenever a health professional becomes ill with Covid19».
Finally, BE says it is necessary to comply with the recommendations of the DGS "with regard to testing health professionals who may have been in contact with infected cases" and "increase the number of health professionals, in particular nurses, as well as the working conditions of the same professionals (for example, ensuring that they are able to shower with hot water whenever they leave work and before going home)».
In the question sent to the Ministry of Health, the blockists question, from the outset, whether the Government is aware of the concerns of health professionals and whether it will provide "the necessary and adequate" protective equipment "as a matter of urgency".
On the other hand, they want to know if Occupational doctors will be hired for public health institutions in the Algarve and if the Government will “intervene and how to provide all the appropriate information and training to health professionals working in a Covid- 19'.
«Can the Government say which Health Centers in the Algarve do not have hot water? When are the works planned to provide hot water baths for professionals before returning home?”, asks BE, who also wants to know if “negative pressure isolation rooms will be created in the hospitals of Portimão and Lagos”.
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