The administration of the Viseu Dão-Lafões Local Health Unit (ILSVDL) announced this Monday that the new pediatric emergency service, whose control will be carried out by Health Line 24, is reserved for urgent/emergency situations.
The “Side by Side in Pediatrics” project is based on four areas of activity: Referral to Pediatric Hospital Emergency; Expansion of Acute Disease Consultation in Primary Health Care; Prehospital Detection; and Education and Literacy,” the administration announced in a statement.
The care model, which begins this Monday at the ULSVDL, aims to guarantee a better response to children with acute illnesses, that is, urgent/emergent situations.
“The objective is to reinforce the network response capacity “side by side”, involving Primary Health Care (between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m.) and Basic Emergency Services (between 11 p.m. and 8 a.m.).”
In this sense, it “guarantees that, at night, Viseu Pediatric Emergencies can Give answer to emerging cases (INEM), maintaining fundamental support for hospitalized children and the Birth Unit.”
For this reason, the ULSVDL highlighted, starting this Monday, “all users who present symptoms of a non-emergent acute illness (for example, cough, fever, nausea, vomiting, among others) must call SNS 24 (808 24 24 24 ) and only when there is clinical observation is necessary if they are referred the same day to pediatric emergencies or for consultation in primary health care.
The primary health care response is expanded with more daily vacancies in the family teams of the different functional units of the Health Centers, within their opening hours.”
That is, “from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. and on weekends, care will be expanded in the Primary Health Care Children’s Complementary Care Consultation, at the Viseu 3 Health Center, in Jugueiros.”
The ULSVDL stated that “access to hospital care depends on prehospital screeningthrough telephone line 24 of the SNS or in first-line observation by family doctors.”
The citizen commitment to personal care and following the guidelines of the SNS 24 telephone line will allow manage better your time and your state of health, helping emergency services to deal more quickly with cases that really need urgent and differentiated care.”
The ULSVDL directive justified the decision with the intention of “reducing the inappropriate use of pediatric emergency care, reorienting users who go to pediatric emergencies and who can be treated in primary health care” and, with this, “ improve the functioning and organizational conditions” at the ULS.
The administration reinforced that “it maintains the response of the ULSVDL pediatric emergency service to emergent patients referred by the INEM, 24 hours a day.”
And also “the response of the network with the support of other regional emergency services (Coimbra, Aveiro and Guarda) during the night, for urgent situations that require pediatric intervention.”
“The board of directors of the ULSVDL calls for public collaboration respect the access rules within the scope of the “Side by Side in Pediatrics” project and thus contribute to guaranteeing response capacity for all.”
The ULSVDL administration activated the contingency plan on March 1, due to the lack of doctors, which led to the closure of outdoor pediatric emergencies from Friday to Sunday night.
However, the departure of two doctors and the arrival of the vacation period worsened the situation, leading the administration of the ULS Viseu Dão-Lafões to close the pediatric emergencies every night of the week, since June 1, between 8 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Source: Observadora
