“I believe that the issue of health should not be excluded from the presidential election debate. We know that the President of the Republic is not the prime minister, nor the health minister, and therefore it is not their role to find governmental solutions, but they should remain vigilant as they have the power to veto government decrees,” he stated.
António Filipe met today near the Hospital de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, in Barreiro, in the Setúbal district, with user commissions from several southern municipalities, including Barreiro, Moita, Seixal, and Alcochete.
“We decided to organize this initiative at the Barreiro hospital to listen to the health user commissions because we are aware of the serious access issues to healthcare in the region, a problem that is national,” said António Filipe.
The presidential candidate expressed concern about the situation in the Setúbal Peninsula.
“This is one of the obstetrics emergencies that will be closed over the weekend (Barreiro), alongside others in the Lisbon region. We are aware, and I believe the entire country is, of the severity of this situation. We are experiencing frequent births in ambulances due to the closure of obstetrics emergencies in the National Health Service hospitals, compounded by the lack of family doctors. This is a very serious situation and we wanted to come here to highlight it,” he noted.
Regarding the potential future concentration of obstetric emergencies at Garcia de Orta in Almada, António Filipe criticized this intention, arguing that more solutions should be found in the Setúbal Peninsula, where five thousand births occur annually.
On July 9, the Minister of Health announced that the Hospital Garcia de Orta in Almada will have its obstetrics emergency open 24 hours a day starting in September, reinforced by doctors who were previously in the private sector and are joining the NHS.
This opening will be possible through a medical team that was in the private sector and will now join the Hospital Garcia de Orta, the official stated, admitting that it will, however, “take some time to stabilize the Setúbal Peninsula” in this health care response.
