“The National Health Service (SNS), evidently, has management problems, resource issues, and issues of autonomy,” stated Rui Tavares at the end of a visit to the Local Health Unit of Vila Nova de Gaia/Espinho, located in the Porto district, where he elected his first deputy in the last legislative elections.
However, after consulting healthcare professionals and administrators, the leader of Livre is convinced that these problems “can be treated and cured.”
He emphasized that the area has solutions, regretting that there is already an ongoing privatization of the SNS, which is often “disguised and partial.”
While acknowledging that private entities have their place, Rui Tavares stressed that their role should be complementary, as stated in the Health Basic Law, and for this to happen, private entities must also have the same obligations as the public sector.
“Because sometimes a private entity announces certain types of services for which it does not have the same obligations, the same standards, does not have to have the same anesthetists, the same nurses, or they do not have them during procedures where the SNS would, and therefore, sometimes, it is even engaging in some misleading advertising,” he emphasized.
He reiterated this point: “When things get serious, we already know that private entities end up sending patients to the SNS. Therefore, this playing field needs to be equalized.”
In his view, this is a measure that does not cost money, requiring only the political courage that, so far, neither PS nor PSD have shown.
Beyond this issue, Rui Tavares advocated for the return of professionals to the SNS, particularly those who went abroad, through the Regressar Saúde program.
To attract these professionals back, it is necessary, he believes, to offer them more time for research, training, and family life.
“It is not a measure that people say requires money; it is essentially about treating human resources well because they are the center of health policies,” he emphasized.
Rui Tavares also warned that there is, at times, “an often excessively alarmist discourse about the SNS from those who want to dismantle it and shift to systems where, in reality, private entities end up dominating, but also, often, from those who wish to defend the SNS but inflate an alarmist discourse about it.”
