In remarks to journalists during the first National Secretariat of the Socialist Party following Saturday’s election, leader Maria Antónia de Almeida Santos expressed significant concern regarding the health situation, particularly highlighting the recent case involving the Air Force helicopter transporting a patient with a cranial injury between Castelo Branco and Coimbra.
The socialist criticized the “various shirking of responsibilities” and “deafening silence” from Prime Minister Luís Montenegro concerning this incident.
“Something needs to be said to the country and the Portuguese people, and the politicians questioning the prime minister need an answer. The prime minister’s silence (…) is incomprehensible and unacceptable,” she stated.
Maria Antónia de Almeida Santos pointed to “a blame-shifting without the assumption of responsibilities” within the Ministries of Health, National Defense, and the executive director of the NHS.
The Air Force helicopter dispatched from Montijo took 2 hours and 15 minutes to transport a patient with a cranial injury between Castelo Branco and Coimbra, stated the Ministry of Defense on Monday, rejecting claims that the operation took several hours.
“From the moment the helicopter took off from Montijo until the patient was delivered in Coimbra, 2 hours and 15 minutes elapsed, including the patient’s waiting time,” the ministry clarified in a statement.
The Ministry of National Defense also considered the information “false” that the transportation of the 49-year-old patient, who suffered a cranial injury, from the Hospital da Covilhã to Coimbra University Hospitals took more than five hours.
Prior to this, INEM, responding to Lusa, stated that the helicopter transfer decision for a patient with a cranial injury admitted to Hospital da Covilhã was a “joint medical decision” considering the patient’s situation and the available resources.
When questioned by Lusa about why the patient was transferred from Covilhã to Coimbra via an Air Force helicopter instead of an ambulance, INEM explained it was a “joint medical decision involving a physician from ULS Cova da Beira, an INEM doctor, and a physician from the Portuguese Air Force (FAP).”
The decision was based on “the clinical criteria of the patient, the available resources best equipped to respond at that moment, and other variables impacting the patient’s clinical state,” added INEM.
