The leader of Chega, André Ventura, addressed the situation involving a dermatologist who earned 400,000 euros for ten days of additional work in 2024 at Hospital de Santa Maria in Lisbon, describing it as “fraud, abuse, and waste” within the National Health Service (SNS).
“Chega has repeatedly warned, reported, and highlighted an issue sensitive to the Portuguese: fraud, abuse, and waste within the healthcare system. The numbers are shocking and alarming,” he stated while speaking to journalists at the Assembly of the Republic.
Ventura stated that Chega will “challenge the Government to do something that should have been done long ago,” specifically obtaining “annual knowledge of the extent of this abuse, waste, and fraud.”
“Regardless of the audits that may occur now, we suspect that these cases might multiply throughout the healthcare system in Portugal. We also know resources in Health are finite. We further suspect that these models of fraud and waste are not exclusive to Health but extendable to other ministries in the country,” he asserted.
The leader of Chega advocated for the creation of an “annual” and “intensive report”: “The Government should be obligated, before the State Budget, to disclose how the previous year’s budget was executed and also the value of waste, fraud, and abuse in Portugal.”
“It is an amendment to the Budgetary Framework Law that, prior to the General State Account or the budget presentation, requires the Government to present not only the execution of the previous year’s budget but also the estimated value of waste, deviation, and fraud in each ministry,” announced Chega’s leader.
The purpose of the proposed law amendment, to be introduced at the start of the legislature, is to determine how much money is spent “either on extraordinary expenses, waste or unfounded deviation, or work overruns, regardless of their nature, in each ministry,” said the leader.
Commenting on the future Government composition, the Chega leader reiterated that the current Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, lacks “considerable political conditions to continue” in the next administration.
Last Friday, it was revealed that a dermatologist at Hospital de Santa Maria received 400,000 euros for working ten additional Saturdays in 2024, with one day spent removing benign lesions from family members. The physician earned over 51,000 euros on a single Saturday.
The situation involves the Integrated System for Surgery Waiting List Management (SIGIC), which allows surgeries outside regular working hours to alleviate long hospital waiting lists.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) and the Inspectorate-General for Health Activities (IGAS) have begun inquiries into the case.
[News updated at 17:36]
