Tiago Botelho, the chairman of the board of directors of the ULS do Algarve, stated that the summer module seasonal plan includes a set of technical responses based on demand but emphasized that the “most visible” part and its “main line of action” is to “ensure the functioning of what already exists.”
With healthcare professionals also wanting to take vacations in the summer, the “main measure or need” is to “ensure that what exists continues to function,” he noted.
“This, in itself, is indeed a significant effort, which does not necessarily mean, in most circumstances, new things or new services or new professionals working,” he clarified.
To achieve this goal, ULS needs to “address the need to grant vacations to people” and ensure that “the allocation of human resources is compensated so that it does not affect the capacity to respond” of the emergency services operating in Faro, Portimão, Lagos, Albufeira, Loulé, and Vila Real de Santo António.
“Keeping an emergency hospital service running in these six cities during the normal season is already not easy. In summer, it is even more complex, and therefore, what we are tasked with is […] ensuring that these six emergency rooms function” with the necessary medical staff, he said.
Tiago Botelho pointed out that there are emergency services “more differentiated than others” and four of them are “basic level.”
“One of them [in Portimão] is medical-surgical, and the one in Faro is polyvalent. […] In Faro and Portimão, they are further subdivided into various other care services — gynecology and obstetrics, pediatrics, and psychiatry. Therefore, all these services are open-door emergency services, and our obligation in terms of the summer plan is to ensure that none of them close,” he explained.
When asked if this goal is achieved through hiring professionals, Tiago Botelho replied that it is necessary to “essentially organize better” and “ensure fair compensation in terms of who can take vacation and who cannot,” sometimes alternating “in annual, biennial, or triennial periods.”
“And then, yes, there are indeed not so many new people recruited, but people who come here on a service provision basis, usually more sporadically throughout the year and now, at this time, come more intensively,” he added.
These are professionals from other hospitals and other parts of the country who, at this time of year, spend more time working in the Algarve, he noted.
The plan also provides that, based on demand, measures such as “more proactive management of inpatient services” to expedite discharges that free up hospital beds or the provision of 20 additional inpatient beds at the Southern Medicine and Rehabilitation Center in São Braz do Alportel may be adopted.
“In primary healthcare, what we did was also ensure the availability of consultations for non-registered users, that is, users who do not have a family doctor in the region and, therefore, are passing through,” Tiago Botelho indicated.
The ULS do Algarve administrator also emphasized that these consultations are available at health centers “throughout the region” and, “additionally,” this year began to be offered in Altura, in the municipality of Castro Marim, and in Quarteira, in the municipality of Loulé, two seaside areas that receive many people in the summer.
The seasonal plan of the ULS do Algarve is in effect from June to September and can be extended if necessary.
