
“We need to retain doctors, nurses, and technicians. To achieve this, it is essential to create the necessary conditions. The government is not establishing these because it seems interested in dismantling them. They seem indifferent, whether it is five, six, or eight emergencies closed, even with the consequences that might entail,” stated Paulo Raimundo to journalists, addressing the deaths of two babies of pregnant women who had to seek emergency hospital services.
The communist emphasized that “there is a limit to things” and that it has already been reached, noting that the Minister of Health is “not incompetent,” but rather is “implementing the government’s program to the detriment of the SNS, pregnant women, and users.”
“What she is doing is effectively implementing the government’s program,” he stressed, in Vilar de Mouros, Caminha, in the district of Viana do Castelo, during the 35th edition of the Women’s Walk, organized by CDU/Porto.
Raimundo points out that “events cannot be exempt from political responsibility” and that “no death is necessary for this to happen.”
“But what good is it to change the minister? If the minister changes, do the emergencies stop being closed, does the policy to retain doctors, nurses, and other staff change? If so, then change the minister immediately,” he declared.
The blame for the current situation lies with the PSD and CDS, Chega, IL, but also with the PS, says the PCP secretary-general.
“There is no point in the PS shedding crocodile tears because they voted in favor of the government program. They could have abstained, at the very least. But no, they put their hands, arms, legs, they put their whole body under the government,” he criticized.
In the program, Raimundo says, “everything is written, not just the privatizations,” but “also the dismantling of the SNS.”
“It is necessary to view the SNS as the solution to address people’s problems. It is not possible to continue dismantling it and cutting it into pieces, which is what is happening,” he censured.
Alerting to the eight emergencies that are closed today, the communist questioned whether “all the doctors have disappeared.”
“Are there no doctors available? Why does the State not do what the private sector does to the State, which is to seek them where they are?” he questioned.
A report noted that a pregnant woman at 31 weeks, in a risky situation, lost her baby after being directed to a hospital more than an hour away from her residence.
The Ministry of Health, in a statement, denied that assistance was refused to the pregnant woman who lost her baby, assuring that the patient was accompanied by an INEM doctor during the trip from Barreiro to the Hospital of Cascais.
Last week, another incident was reported of a pregnant woman at 31 weeks who supposedly called the Health 24 line without success and eventually called 112, prompting the activation of the Barreiro firefighters.
According to the report, the pregnant woman was eventually transported to Cascais because the emergencies at the Hospital S. Bernardo, in Setúbal, which should have been open, were closed due to overcrowding, a situation denied by the ministry.