The report, commissioned by the Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, examined the impact of strikes at the end of October and beginning of November 2024 on the response capability of INEM’s Centros de Orientação de Doentes Urgentes (CODU). It concluded that the death of a man in Pombal during this period “could have been avoided had there been timely and adequate assistance.”
The IGAS found that INEM did not fully meet its mandated responsibilities, particularly in responding to the emergency call, and assigned blame to two health professionals, a pre-hospital emergency technician from Coimbra’s CODU and a doctor.
INEM announced on Wednesday that it would initiate disciplinary proceedings following the report.
INEM assured that it would open a disciplinary process in response to the IGAS report, which concluded that a man’s death in November during an institute strike could have been avoided.
In a statement, INEM’s Workers’ Commission declared it is “false that INEM professionals were negligent, careless, or uncommitted” and criticized IGAS for “confusing the 112 call handling with the response” of the emergency body.
The statement described this as “a gross error distinguishable by all citizens, which an inspection entity, by legal and technical obligation, should not make,” urging IGAS to “publicly acknowledge its responsibility and correct the facts.”
“It is absolutely necessary for the Minister of Health to order an immediate inquiry into IGAS’s conduct, as its conclusions are technically and ethically unacceptable, revealing profound ignorance about INEM’s operations,” the statement argued.
INEM’s representational body also deemed the attacks on its workers “grave,” interpreting them as a “dishonest attempt to scapegoat” the workers.
Today, the Union of Pre-hospital Emergency Technicians accused IGAS of unjustly blaming the death on a pre-hospital emergency technician.
In a message to Lusa, the STEPH stated that IGAS’s information is based on “falsehoods and a distortion of the reality” of the medical emergency response on November 4, 2024, during an INEM strike, demanding the “immediate retraction” of IGAS’s statements and the “full restoration of truth regarding the events” and the conditions under which the technician performed her duties.
After the report’s findings became public, the Ministry of Health stated in a note that “any delays in INEM’s emergency response (…) are not attributed to the strike” but are allegedly due to the “lack of diligence, care, and commitment of two involved professionals.”
