The Order of Doctors created a commission to evaluate around 50 public and private maternity hospitals in the country in view of “the scenario of absolute failure” of the Ministry of Health in this matter, the president revealed to Lusa today.
“It will be an exhaustive study, both due to its size, there are 50 places of birth, and also due to the depth of the study, but the Medical Association understood that, since the Ministry of Health does not adequately carry out its work in this matter, it should give a technical-scientific contribution to an extremely sensitive matter that has been experiencing serious difficulties for too long”, said Carlos Cortes.
For the president, the Government's program “is proving to be an absolute failure” in terms of response in the area of obstetrics.
“We have absolutely dramatic situations of non-response, for example, in greater Lisbon, at the São Francisco Xavier hospital” which is receiving pregnant women from the Santa Maria Hospital, whose maternity ward is closed due to construction.
The president said that he was in a hospital in Leiria on Wednesday, “which is also going through a dramatic situation”, in which from Thursday to Sunday there is no response in this area.
It was in view of this scenario that the Medical Association decided to create “a commission, a working group, to evaluate public and private maternity hospitals in the country” which is made up of several schools, namely gynecology-obstetrics, anesthesiology, pediatrics, neonatology , and will have the support of the University of Porto, as there will also be a statistical study.
According to Carlos Cortes, the physical, technical and human resources conditions of maternity wards will be assessed, to check what the problems are and point out solutions, particularly in terms of professionals, knowing how many are needed for the country and in which locations, and the means technological technicians who are necessary to monitor pregnant women.
After completing the work, OM will send a document with its recommendations to the Ministry of Health to implement them “if it so wishes”.
Carlos Cortes hopes to be able to deliver the document in March or April, when the Ministry of Health, of the new Government, “is ready to begin its functions”.
Asked by Lusa about the difficulties that pregnant women are having due to the closure of maternity wards due to a lack of professionals to ensure shifts, Carlos Cortes exemplified that doctors from units in Setúbal told him this week that pregnant women have to go for an ultrasound scan in private. because there is no response from the National Health Service in that area.
Carlos Cortes also said that the constraints in the SNS create “an effect of insecurity” on pregnant women, leading many of them to choose to be followed up in the private sector right from the start so that, he stressed, “they do not have to be in this situation of uncertainty and insecurity of the public sector, where they do not have permanent and constant monitoring”.
“If public maternity hospitals close several days a week, they do not respond, mothers necessarily have to go to the private sector”, he lamented.
“So, we know about the difficulties, we are now going to find out more about what these difficulties are, where they are and how the Ministry of Health will be able to resolve them”, concluded the doctors’ president.
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