One of the inevitable results of the current lack of doctors in Portugal, and particularly the Algarve, is that the mortality rate will increase, according to the president of Portugal’s Medical Association.
Speaking on ‘The State of Health in Portugal' at the 11th Portuguese Conference on Diabetes taking place in Vilamoura, José Manuel da Silva (pictured) drew attention to an English study that points to this conclusion and handed out strong criticism of the health policy of the current Government.
This forthright commentary earned a standing applause from the delegates as the president pointed the finger at the current disinvestment in the National Health Service, and described "the adverse political philosophy to the NHS in the current government."
New Algarve champion José Manuel da Silva argued that instead of cuts in healthcare provision, the government should do away "with the corruption scandal over the Public Private Partnerships for the road system.”
Regarding the lack of doctors in some hospitals, the problem is in the method of recruitment, "there is no correct distribution of doctors and no correct policy of hiring doctors in Portugal. The sealed tender system, paradoxically, hinders the placement of doctors within the country, particularly in the Algarve.”
José Manuel da Silva considers such “illegal and unconstitutional” tendering competitions, in addition to being "a paradox, are an absurdity."
"When I was here about two weeks ago, they gave me the example of a young surgeon trained in the hospital who could not enter the sealed bid process, so the job went to the private sector even though the surgeon would have stayed at Faro Hospital” said the medical chief.
This is just another situation where the doctors are available to fill vacancies in the Algarve, and despite all the talk from the Board of Directors of the Central Hospitals of the Algarve Group (under Dr Pedro Nunes) and the efforts being made to attract more medical personnel.
In his previous visit to the region the president said that "there is a cardiologist and obstetrician available to go to the Hospital of Portimão whose contracts are delayed and nobody knows what the problem is."
José Manuel da Silva’s speech also focused on the results of the NHS. The country’s top doctor presented numbers and hard facts "that indicate that the NHS is not only efficient, and almost always above the OECD average and similar to some richer countries, but also cheaper per capita than most countries belonging to this group.”
“Portugal has one of the best public health services. It is universal, inexpensive and has excellent results. We can not accept it when they say it is not sustainable. What is not sustainable is how this country was, and continues to be governed.”
"It was not the NHS that led Portugal to bankruptcy. In 40 years of democracy the IMF has come to Portugal’s aid three times. It is the model of governance that we must change, not the model of financing the National Health Service," added José Manuel da Silva’s after his speech was received with rapturous applause.
