The president of the National Federation of Doctors (Fnam) said today that doctors at the Beatriz Ângelo Hospital, in Loures, are handing in disclaimers because they consider that the conditions for carrying out medical acts safely are lacking.
Joana Bordalo e Sá was speaking to the Lusa news agency about the long waiting times for patients triaged with a yellow (urgent) bracelet at the Beatriz Ângelo Hospital, which at 13:50 stood at 17 hours and 16 minutes, with 55 people waiting to be examined by a doctor.
According to the union leader, this situation is due to the lack of family doctors in the Loures area and hospital specialists, particularly at this hospital, which is now part of the Loures-Odivelas Local Health Unit (ULS).
“When there is a shortage of doctors in primary health care, there is obviously a greater influx to the emergency services, because people want to see their health problems, which are aggravated, resolved,” he said.
“Because they are so overloaded and feel that there are not enough of them and that they are unable to respond and carry out the medical act safely, the doctors are submitting disclaimers,” said Joana Bordalo e Sá.
In a response to Lusa, the Beatriz Ângelo Hospital said that the waiting time is due to the fact that the influx of patients to the General Emergency Service remains “very high” and that the inpatient department is overcrowded, “which makes it difficult for emergency patients who need to stay in hospital to circulate”.
She said she was aware that the hospital has 30 empty beds due to a lack of staff, particularly doctors, and another 30 occupied by social cases.
In total, there are 60 beds that could be occupied with patients who are in the emergency room and need to be admitted “if there was a clinical staff capable of responding”, he said.
“In the last few days we’ve had almost 200 patients in the emergency room, 80 of them are in an emergency room waiting for a vacancy and they don’t go up to the inpatient unit because there are no doctors to look after those vacancies,” said the president of Fnam.
In addition to these patients, there are still others waiting for reassessment to find out whether they will be admitted or discharged, “which means there is a very long delay in waiting times”.
“Patients who are triaged with a yellow bracelet, which is a moderate severity, have been waiting for 22 hours to be seen, and patients who have even been referred by the SNS line have been waiting for around 21 hours, and all because of a lack of doctors,” warned Joana Bordalo e Sá.
According to the union leader, there are constraints in several hospitals across the country, but the most serious situation is in Loures.
“It’s an extremely dramatic situation” that results from a “culmination of health policies that haven’t solved the problem of doctors”, he lamented.
Joana Bordalo e Sá guaranteed that Fnam will continue to demand that the new government improve working conditions and salaries so that there are enough doctors in the NHS, considering that a meeting with doctors to resolve their problems should be “one of the first priorities of the next Minister of Health”.
More than 18-hour wait for urgent patients at Loures hospital