Socialist Alexandra Leitão stated on Sunday that Health Minister Ana Paula Martins is “extraordinarily weakened to govern,” which also implicates Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, who has “vehemently expressed his confidence” in the minister.
Speaking to CNN Portugal, Alexandra Leitão declined to call for Ana Paula Martins’ resignation but opined that the minister “is surely, extraordinarily weakened to make decisions and measures, fundamentally to govern an area such as Health.”
The former socialist deputy asserted that the Health Minister “was already weakened in the previous government,” and by keeping her in the current administration, “the Prime Minister, to some extent, took joint responsibility for what might happen or what is already happening in Health.”
Also a PS candidate for Lisbon City Council, she avoided commenting on the recent “tragic deaths of babies” for lack of details on the cases but listed those she sees as “facts” with “direct consequences”—closed emergencies, the controversy at INEM, the delay in launching the emergency medical helicopter transport tender, the “blunders of the Executive Directorate of the National Health Service (SNS),” or the “scandals” related to additional surgical production.
“We have here, in fact, a set of situations that are facts. They have direct and immediate consequences on the loss of quality of the SNS and, consequently, on the loss of health of the Portuguese, and obviously leave the minister very weakened to govern an area as sensitive and important to all of us as Health,” emphasized the former State Modernization and Public Administration Minister.
“And they also leave the Prime Minister, who has repeatedly and vocally expressed confidence in this minister, weakened,” she concluded.
The health sector has been embroiled in controversy, and in just three weeks, three babies died in the Lisbon and Leiria regions. In the first two cases, two pregnant women lost their babies in situations reportedly linked to emergency room closures. In another case, a woman, 26 weeks pregnant, while being transported by the Nazaré Volunteer Firefighters to the Leiria Hospital, gave birth in the ambulance, and the baby did not survive.
In a recent interview with SIC Notícias, Ana Paula Martins “deeply lamented” the outcomes but noted these “could hardly have been avoided.”
The Health Minister highlighted that “medicine cannot solve everything yet.” “During this year, we’ve done work that has already had effects, especially in obstetrics. If you ask me if everything’s done, it’s not,” she acknowledged.
Later, Ana Paula Martins mentioned she would consider stepping down as minister if she lacks “strength,” “enthusiasm,” or “capacity.”
“The day I feel I lack the strength, that I lack the enthusiasm, or even that I lack the capacity to – together with the team – design and implement policies, or if I have a health or family issue, on that day, I will say so,” she noted.
