Body of a man found floating in the Alvor estuary, Portimão
The body of a man was found this Friday morning, floating in the Alvor estuary in Portimão after the alert was given by a member of the public around 10:00am.
According to reports , “searches were immediately launched by the Maritime Police and the Ferragudo Lifeboat , which culminated in the rescue of the body”.
The authorities have verified that it was the body of a 66 year old man, of Mozambican nationality.
The case has been handed over to the Judiciary Police, who will investigate the cause of death.
Portimão: 18 year old arrested for aggravated theft and possession of a prohibited weapon
The 18 year old jobless man was arrested yesterday in Portimão, suspected of committing aggravated theft and possession of a prohibited weapon.
The Judiciary Police identified and arrested the man, for robbery that occurred in December 2022 in Portimão, in a commercial establishment.
The detainee, along with another individual, also arrested for the same violations, went to the commercial establishment on foot and, armed with a gun, took several bottles of alcoholic beverages valued at hundreds of euros, and ran.
During the robbery, the staff member of the shop was injured in the head with the butt of the gun, causing minor injuries that did not require medical treatment.
The young man will be present for the first judicial interrogation, for the application of coercive measures deemed appropriate.
Number of those without a family doctor is now almost 1.7 million
According to the SNS, the number of patients without a family doctor has increased by 29% in one year, now reaching almost 1.7 million people.
The situation is said to be due to retirements and the lack of capacity of the National Health Service (SNS) to attract experts.
According to the SNS transparency portal, in April 2022 a total of 1,299,016 million users did not have a family doctor assigned, a number that increased to 1,678,226 in April this year.
Due to the lack of doctors available, the number of users monitored by these general and family medicine specialists dropped from around 9.1 million to just over 8.8 million in the last year, with patients presumably using emergency services, or private medical care when possible, instead.
On Saturday, marches by several unions are scheduled in Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra against the “degradation of the SNS”, an initiative to claim a “serious investment” in this much needed public service.
For the president of the Portuguese Association of General and Family Medicine (APMGF), Nuno Jacinto, this situation is due, simultaneously, to a wave of retirements of specialists that has been taking place in recent years and to the lack of attractiveness of the SNS to retain recent graduate family doctors and to attract those currently out of public service.
Faced with these two factors, "the entire system that should be based on primary health care shifts the focus to hospitals and emergency services, which also lack human resources and are not designed for this type of response", he said.
The lack of family doctors is forcing users to access the SNS “through a place where they should not enter” – hospitals -, “perverting” the entire system and overloading health professionals in general.
According to the head of the ANMGF, Mónica Paes Mamede, the feeling of family doctors that “their work does not have the appreciation and respect it should have” has also contributed to the situation.
In practice, this is due to "the lack of investment in primary care, first of all, in the salary scale", as well as career stagnation, the inadequacy of the evaluation system, which should have progression based on merit, and the a “very rigid contracting model based on 40 hours, which does not allow doctors the flexibility that exists, for example, in the private sector”, he said.
“In 2022, the amount paid to a new specialist was 16.03 euros per hour gross”, surely an extremely “low” salary, taking into account all the clinical responsibilities that a specialist has, as well as the requirement of the profession at various levels. The new specialists are responsible for all the clinical decisions that are taken about their patients, they work in 24-hour shifts and with rotating schedules on weekends and holidays.
“The social and private sectors are in the same country as the public sector and pay, as a rule, much higher and the working conditions are also more attractive”, said Mónica Paes Mamede.
If there is no increase in salaries, "there is a risk of having an increasingly weak SNS", warned the president of the National Commission of Internal Physicians of the SIM.
Knife fight in Vilamoura leaves 5 young people injured
A clash between five youngsters in the car park of the Vilamoura Casino resulted in a fight with bladed weapons, resulting in all of the youths suffering injuries.
The fight occured just after 6:00 am on Sunday morning, closing time for the 'Dice' nightclub, located in the same building as the Vilamoura Casino.
Two of the young people suffered injuries to their backs, arms and legs and are in serious condition. The rest had cuts and abrasions on their face, head and back. Of the injured, four were transported to Faro hospital and one refused assistance.
The group consisted of three Portuguese and two Brazilians, aged between 19 and 23 years.
The attacks were filmed and shared in private groups on social networks. In one of the videos it is possible to see attacks on at least two boys. One of them is hit twice, once in the back. In another video, it is possible to see a boy on the ground, with marks on his knee and arm, and being assisted by a GNR soldier.
Witness accounts helped the GNR to identify two of the suspects, aged 20 and 24. However, no arrests were made because they were not caught in the act or any bladed weapons seized.
Head of SEF in Albufeira accused of corruption
It has been announced today that the head of the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) in Albufeira will be tried for passive corruption, after receiving money in 2018 to facilitate residence permit processes.
“The monetary amounts delivered were independent of the fees, fines and charges due for the residence permit processes and were pocketed by the defendant, for his own benefit”, says the Public Prosecution Service.
In a statement, the Public Ministry said that the 61 year old man will be tried for two crimes of passive corruption, while the foreigners who paid him to speed up the processes, aged 44 and 24, will be tried for a crime of active corruption. .
The crimes took place in June and July 2018, when the SEF employee in Albufeira, always outside office hours and in his own office, received money from the two men illegally, says the statement on the website of the District Attorney of Faro.
