Family doctors for “the entire population” and investments of almost 3 million euros on the way, to improve the working conditions of health professionals and user care. It was these news that brought Manuel Pizarro to the Olhão Health Center, yesterday, Tuesday morning, as part of a visit to the region that included a passage in São Brás de Alportel and a meeting with the Algarve mayors.
During his visit to the municipality of Olhão, Manuel Pizarro was in the recently opened Family Health Unit “Lendas d'Olhão”, which came into operation on October 2nd and made it possible to guarantee that there is a family doctor for everyone in Olhão.
«What happens here has enormous meaning. The municipality of Olhão, which has more than 45 thousand inhabitants, has, from the beginning of October, full coverage, which means that everyone has a family doctor. I think that this hasn't happened here in Olhão for decades», illustrated the Minister of Health.
«The possibility for all our citizens to have a family doctor is very important. (…) Certainly, monitoring people by their family doctor will also make it possible to reduce more serious problems, later on", in addition to "removing some pressure from our hospitals", said, for his part, António Pina, president of Olhão Chamber.
«I must say that it is only the first municipality in the Algarve where this will happen, as several will follow. Today we will be in São Brás de Alportel to highlight the same thing: all citizens will now have a family doctor», added the minister.
This is possible thanks to the creation of family health units, «which are a model that allows serving more users and attracting more professionals», but also «due to decentralization», because «it was the involvement of the City Council of Olhão that made this possible », for being «able to mobilize professionals» to move forward with this new USF.
The commitment made by the Chamber to construct a new building for the new unit, next to the municipal swimming pools, contributed greatly to this.
«This availability of the team of doctors, nurses, administrative staff and operational assistants to start now was greatly encouraged by this commitment. The project that we are presenting here today is a project built with everyone, including these health professionals», revealed António Pina.
In the pipeline is, from the outset, the construction of a new building, next to the municipal swimming pools, «which is a relatively accessible, central area, with parking, enhancing this public equipment», in a project budgeted at 1,4 million euros, financed by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR)
Also planned is «the requalification of the Olhão Health Center, which will cost around 1,5 million euros».
Our intention is that, both in the case of the new health unit and the rehabilitation of the Health Center, the technical project will be completed by the first quarter of next year, so that we can launch the competition in 2024, as the work has must be completed by 2026.
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