The perennial problems eating away at the Algarve’s State-run hospitals have seen health minister Marta Temido come up with a drastic solution.
Out are going all the members of the current ‘management council’ and ‘in’ are coming new faces entirely.
Explains tabloid Correio da Manhã, the current administrator Ana Paula Gonçalves “has shown willingness to continue at her job” but Ms Temido decided to totally change the team “bearing in mind the dismotivation of professionals” that work at Faro and Portimão public hospitals.
It was Ana Paula Gonçalves who admitted to journalists last year that: “Our hospital is truly inadequate for the kind of care patients today deserve”.
“We are not hiding this in any way” she said, “but it is not in our hands to do anything about it from one day to the next”.
Issues and undisguised discontent reached boiling point just before Christmas when eight surgical chiefs ‘walked out’ blaming ‘institutional indifference’ for the truly dire situation at Faro’s A&E.
Says CM, Ms Gonçalves’ successor has already been chosen, from outside the region.
The decision was made to choose someone who has no connection to the Algarve to avoid the possibility of ‘antibodies’ that might exist if someone was chosen from the region, said the paper.
All that remains now is to fill the other slots, and then names will be released.
The shake-up follows a letter by doctors from the two hospitals requesting a new administration as the only way to move forwards.
Credit to the Portugal Resident
