The former President of the Assembly of the Republic, Augusto Santos Silva, refuted statements made by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro on Tuesday. Montenegro claimed the National Health Service (SNS) is “better today than it was a year ago” during a debate on Monday with the leader of the Liberal Initiative (IL), Rui Rocha.
“I heard the prime minister in a debate yesterday supporting the idea that the SNS is better today than it was a year ago; and I thought there might be many people believing such an allegation. Although the facts contradict it: there are more Portuguese people without an assigned family doctor today, more emergency rooms closed and more frequently throughout the year, indiscriminate resignations without technical basis, more health units managed by managers appointed based on party affiliation, and although a good executive board has been removed, it was succeeded first by chaos and then inertia,” Santos Silva wrote on the social media platform Facebook.
The socialist pointed out, however, that this “apparent plausibility of what Luís Montenegro said” can be easily explained when compared with the scrutiny faced by the Socialist Party (PS) government.
“The difference is that the Medical Association is silent, the unions less aggressive and less capable of reaching the news – and, above all, because the daily campaigns of media fabrication of chaos on television have disappeared,” he accused.
Santos Silva went further, indicating that “when the political agenda tends to favor private interests (as is the case with this Government’s fundamental decisions regarding the SNS), private interests tend to spare it.”
“What I still cannot understand is why, when this is so evident, so many self-proclaimed progressive syndicalists and politicians who claim to defend the SNS continue to cooperate, being a fearsome and indefatigable lion when the PS is in government and a tame and sleepy lamb when the Right takes its turn,” he accused.
It should be noted that, in the face-to-face with Rui Rocha, the prime minister sought to enumerate the country’s results in areas such as public finances, public administration, and health, which he considered to be better than last year. He even spoke of a certain “Montenegrization of the political thought of opposition parties,” citing security, immigration, economy, fiscal policy, and public administration careers as examples.
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