When she accepted the challenge of leading the Board of Directors of Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Algarve, Ana Castro knew well that this was not a dream job. However, he accepted, because «people who live in the Algarve also deserve to have good health».
The new head of the Algarve hospitals arrived in July with a management model and a vision "a little different" from her predecessors, which she believes can make a difference. Because that's what it's all about: "I came here with the perspective of being able to do something, of being able to change some things", said Ana Castro to Sul Informação, in the first big interview he has given since taking office.
“I'm not saying that the people who were here before had no intention of doing it or that they didn't want to do it. Now, in reality, I bring a management model that is perhaps a little different from what has been done so far, I bring a vision that is also a little different from what has been used so far», he illustrated.
In addition, he considered, he has “a great advantage: I'm not from the area, so I don't have any special relationship with private or public, neither with this nor with that, for me everyone is at the same level. Therefore, I work with everyone in a perfectly transversal way».
And what is this management model and what differences does it introduce?
«My management model makes services, departments, and seeks to empower them with management tools. In other words, they manage their budget themselves, something that is currently not done. We only ask them for numbers, but afterwards we won't tell them what those numbers imply», explained the new responsible for the Algarve hospitals.
In this way, «each of the services will be invited to review their activity plan and budget. We have monthly production meetings to see what people are producing and what it takes to get there. We will monitor monthly, so that when we reach the end of the year we will have the objective achieved, what we set out to do and contract”.
“But for this, people have to understand exactly, when they ask for something, what will it imply in the budget and what is the return on that investment. This is the difference. The service directors themselves will have this awareness, will have this training and will talk to us. I think this is the big difference in management», revealed Ana Castro.
These first months on the job were for get to know the house and to reorganize it. And Ana Castro confesses: «What I found was a little worse than what I had been told».
“But I also expected that. They wouldn't tell me fully what I would find, if it wasn't just halfway there for the person to think 35 times», he said, smiling.
Much of the work done was linked to the response to Covid-19 and the preparation for the activation of Phase 2 of the Contingency Plan, which was decreed on the 10th of November.
But the new CA is also preparing for the future, in terms of hiring staff and purchasing new equipment.
The shortage of human resources was, moreover, one of the main problems identified, as soon as the new management team entered.
“The most complicated issues are, above all, the personnel. The hospital center has a reduced staff, which does not give us much margin, and that is what we have been trying to work on. We are trying to attract people to stay here, to get professionals from abroad to complete the staff, because we need to», he revealed.
As far as doctors are concerned, CHUA “is sorely lacking in some areas. We have already been looking for doctors who came to work with us, from various specialties».
As for nurses, hospitals in the Algarve «are already hiring». Since the new CA entered, «we have been looking to the market to hire around 103 nurses, 60 assistants and 40 technicians», revealed Ana Castro.
“Right now we are trying to strengthen the staff, we are also trying to bring in more anesthetists, which is an area that is always in deficit. We have a certain specialty, but then we don't have anesthesia, so it doesn't resolve the issue. And our goal is, ultimately, to have more people working at CHUA full-time, with individual employment contracts and not as service providers. It is our bet that the staff of CHUA is mostly ours,” he added.
«We have, at the moment, vascular surgery in operation in the Algarve, for a month, which was a specialty that we did not have. And we probably want to bring in chest surgery. We have a colleague interested in coming to work here and that way we would have more specialties available. Colleagues came, due to mobility, from the pediatrics of Hospital D. Estefânia and we have been admitting more orthopedists and ophthalmologists», listed Ana Castro.
When it comes to equipment, the watchword is renovation.
"We have this foreseen in the investment plan for next year, to try to renew some equipment and to have others available," he said.
On the other hand, there is a maintenance plan, but it is far from solving all the problems, considering that the equipment is reaching its end of life.
“Usually the equipment that breaks down is fixed in good time. Therefore, there are those who do maintenance. Now, the biggest issue is the renewal of part of this material, because it is starting to become obsolete. One day they will break down and we have no way of repairing it,” he explained.
To deal with this situation, “an investment plan was made to try to start renovating and having other types of equipment that we don't have. There is the case of angiography, for example, which is equipment that we want to have in order to support vascular surgery».
As for infrastructure, the new administration has a plan for the Hospital de Lagos, but which Ana Castro is still unable to discuss “because it lacks approval by the tutelage. But I think it could have a resolution in the short term».
To carry out these investments, the Board of Directors of CHUA relies on increased funding from the State.
“That's also why we think it will be possible to do it. Let's see if we can get the budget we submitted approved. As soon as this is done, these investments will already be included there. That's the goal,” concluded the Chair of the Board of Directors of CHUA.
Photos: Nuno Costa | Sul Informação
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