Eight urgent and priority measures of the Emergency and Health Transformation Plan remain unfulfilled, with two of them overdue for more than a year. Experts recognize that some deadlines should be revised.
In statements, the coordinator of the working group responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Emergency and Health Transformation Plan (PETS) evaluates the work done “positively, but without euphoria,” acknowledging that “ambition is welcome.”
“There was optimism, and ambition is welcome, but perhaps it was too high,” admits Carlos Robalo, who argues that there are measures that should have their deadlines revised, such as the separation of the Gynecology and Obstetrics specialties: “It will be impossible.”
The same applies to the deinstitutionalization of chronic mental health situations, a measure classified as urgent and thus should have been completed by the end of August 2024: “It must be reconsidered. In fact, it should become ‘structural’ [medium/long-term] and if achieved by the end of the legislature, it would be good,” Carlos Robalo believes.
The PETS, presented on May 29, 2024, is divided into five priority areas: Timely Responses, Safe Mothers and Babies, Urgent and Emerging Care, Close and Family Health, and Mental Health.
According to the plan’s monitoring site, two urgent measures (out of a total of 15) are still not completed, which were supposed to achieve results by the end of August of last year: the rehabilitation of emergency services spaces — general/psychiatric emergency and the deinstitutionalization of chronic mental health situations.
Six other priority measures (out of a total of 26) are also “underway”: new clinical priority for cancer patients, creation of Family Health Units model C (USF C), strengthening public response in partnership with the private sector (Medical Associations and Cooperatives), incentivizing adherence to the voluntary regime of an additional patient portfolio, structured intervention programs in anxiety and depression in Primary Healthcare, and creation of regional mental health services for the hospitalization of highly complex patients.
The working group coordinator highlights the increased response capacity in the National Health Service (SNS) and the effects of creating Clinical Attendance Centers (to divert people from emergencies), noting that the operation of these centers reduced waiting times in emergency services by 20%.
However, he emphasizes the need to “flexibilize contracts” to attract and retain health professionals: “Closed contracts do not serve new generations, who increasingly value greater coordination between professional, personal, family, and social life.”
He also stresses the need for programs that help increase literacy among the population and for faster communication with citizens: “People must always know where to go and when.”
“Pre-contact [with services] is what is done in more advanced countries,” he adds.
