The coordinator of the extinct task force responsible for vaccination against Covid-19, Henrique Gouveia e Melo, said today that the existence of a person who directs and is responsible for the process of the third dose of the vaccine is "always useful".
Speaking to journalists, on the sidelines of the award of the National Bioethics Prize, Vice Admiral Gouveia e Melo admitted that it was "very difficult" to comment on the process of administering the third dose of the vaccine against Covid-19, in which he does not participate. .
“It's very difficult to comment on something I don't participate in, but I think there's always one person who leads the process and is accountable for the process is always helpful, but there can be other ways to organize things. We organized the process having a person who centralized the attention and responsibilities and that worked”, he said.
Asked if a "messenger" was needed in this process, the coordinator of the extinct task force he sent clarifications to the Ministry of Health, stating that the mission for which he was appointed was “completed” and that “we must all be proud”.
«I was appointed to a mission and the mission was to vaccinate to the fullest extent all Portuguese people with two doses. When this mission ended, I left the task force and it was extinguished, later, there will be other missions and organizations to do, but our mission is over,” he observed.
As for a possible return of the task force and, consequently, coordinating the vaccination process, Gouveia e Melo stated that “while wearing the uniform” the democratically elected political power is in charge.
"If the political power asks me or demands that I carry out another mission, I just have to make sense and carry out that mission, that is the military condition", he added, adding that the military condition "is not just good things".
"The military condition is not only good things, it also has good things and less good things, one of them is absolute obedience to the democratically elected power", he considered.
Gouveia e Melo also clarified, referring to a statement made during the Web Summit about the reasons for the success of his mission, that, like the military, the politicians have "everything", but that, in directing a process of the dimension of vaccination against Covid-19 takes him "into space and political combat."
“The fact that the person who coordinates the process is not in the political space makes the criticisms focus only on the process and not on hidden things that could blur the process”, he mentioned.
The vice-admiral received today the National Bioethics Award, a distinction awarded since 2007 by the National Bioethics Association, for the functions performed and the planning qualities demonstrated.
Comments