The board of directors of the local health unit (ULS) announced that a meeting was held late this morning with the director of the orthopedics department, Paulo Almeida, and the administrator for this area, where “short-term measures were agreed upon.”
According to ULS Santa Maria officials, the goal is to establish a plan that provides “real assurances of addressing the concerns” of the doctors, as well as the entire service, to “create immediate conditions for reorganizing this critical service and gradually returning to normalcy.”
Paulo Almeida, who remains in his position, submitted his resignation at a time when 12 specialists in the service have requested exemptions from overtime hours, a mechanism they can use when they reach the annual limit of extra work hours specified by law.
Joana Bordalo e Sá, president of the National Federation of Doctors (FNAM), stated that Paulo Almeida’s resignation, more than an individual act, is a “warning cry about the imminent crisis of the National Health Service (SNS), which is daily.”
According to the union leader, when 12 specialists refuse “to continue bearing the burden of emergencies, hour after hour of overtime, a director feels they cannot continue to lead under these conditions.”
