The concentration of emergencies and delivery blocks is one of the proposals in the document that the monitoring committee for the response to gynecology/obstetrics emergencies will deliver to the government on Saturday, its coordinator told Lusa on Thursday.
The possibility of combining some services with the concentration of emergencies in obstetrics and gynecology and delivery blocks was agreed this Wednesday at a meeting of the Emergency Response Monitoring Committee in Gynecology, Obstetrics and Delivery Blocks, said Diogo Ayres de Campos.
The coordinator explained that this situation does not imply the closure of the maternities: “You can continue working in a private hospital for consultations and hospitalization, but the emergency and delivery block of that hospital will be in a hospital next door.”
The proposal is part of the review report of the network of emergency obstetric and childbirth blocks, whose “main aspects” were concluded on Wednesday night at the meeting of the committee made up of six elements, namely, the national coordinator and five others. clinical representatives. from each region of the country.
“Only some editing aspects were missing to finish Friday at midnight,” he said, adding that it will be ready to deliver to the Ministry of Health on Saturday.
The document is the result of several studies carried out by the commission and of the survey of the current situation in this area, he said, referring to the “most notorious” situation of this survey as “the absence of specialist doctors and nurses in some SNS hospitals” . .
According to the specialist, the situation is more serious in the hospitals in the interior of Portugal, far from the large centers, but also in some hospitals in the Lisbon region and the Tagus Valley, in all the hospitals with maternity hospitals in the Alentejo and also in the Algarve. .
“In some hospitals, the lack of doctors is worrying. In others, the situation is more balanced and it is possible to maintain all the activity”, but above all there is “an enormous asymmetry” in the hospitals of these regions where “the situation is very worrying”.
Diogo Ayres de Campos said that there are about 800 specialists in obstetrics and gynecology in the National Health Service of mainland Portugal, and about 200 more are needed.
“This survey was based on data from July this year and, in the meantime, some doctors have already left, mainly from the Lisbon region and the Tagus Valley,” he revealed, adding that these numbers of necessary specialists also take into account the loss of the near future of some SNS doctors to private medicine.
Asked if the document contains proposals to attract doctors to the SNS, Diogo Ayres de Campos said that there are some generic proposals, because it is an issue between the Government and the unions.
The Monitoring Committee was created in June by the former Minister of Health, Marta Temido, after the temporary closure of emergency services in obstetrics and gynecology and delivery units in various parts of the country due to the difficulty of hospitals in completing the service. specialized doctor.
Source: Observadora
