Filipe Amorim / Lusa
The Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins.
Chaos at INEM “will still make your head spin” — and Ana Paula Martins is now under fire from another front.
It has already risen to 11 the number associated with , and the siege tightens on the Minister of Health.
At a time of strike by pre-hospital emergency technicians, the fate of Ana Paula Martins — — sounds right. However, despite the various criticisms, Prime Minister Luís Montenegro has already rejected the minister’s resignation, but if he is reacting it is because “the problem exists”. “It’s a question that will still make your head water.“, says journalist Rita Tavares on the radio.
The government did not expect the “impact of the combination of two strikes”, but was aware the beginning of the strike, the Secretary of State for Health, Cristina Vaz Tomé, assured the minister’s statements, who said she was not expecting “pre-hospital emergency technicians to refuse to work overtime”.
On Friday, the minister canceled the agenda in the district of Coimbra for “indisposition“, at a time when pressure was high due to the crisis in emergency services.
This Sunday, the minister was attacked from another front. Now, it is the dentists’ union that demand his resignation.
“Lack of respect”
The Union of Dentists (SMD) accuses the Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, of lack of respectafter successive cancellations of meetings, and demands his resignation, having already informed the Prime Minister of the situation.
Speaking to the Lusa agency, the president of the SMD said that the resignation was a very considered decision, and the union came to the conclusion that It was “the only way left”after successive attempts to schedule meetings and their cancellation by the guardianship.
The most recent situation, explained João Neto, happened at the end of October, when a meeting with Ana Paula Martins was scheduled for the 22nd, preceded weeks before by a preparatory meeting with the chief of staff.
“What is certain is that 48 hours before this meeting (…) I receive a call from an advisor at 4:30 in the afternoon saying that there will be no meeting. Without any argument, without any justification and on top of that, what surprises us most is that there was no alternative or other date scheduled”, he stated.
In João Neto’s opinion, “this is disrespectful to the union” and is “a sign that the minister does not want to talk with dentists.” He points out that “it is very difficult to defend the class” and present the respective demands when there is no interlocutor at the Ministry of Health.
The union president said that at the end of last week the SMD brought the matter to the office of Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, having received in response that the head of Government was monitoring the situation, but that he forwarded the case to the person responsible for the department of Health. João Neto explained that the SMD wants to meet with the minister to resume conversations started under previous governments and that, he says, this government has stopped.
Teeth are forgotten
“What is ridiculous and caricatured is that we We have too many dentists and we have some of the worst oral health indicators in European Union countries. We are the third OECD country with the greatest difficulty in accessing oral health care”, he pointed out.
He accused the current and previous Governments of not having made any planning in relation to the oral health of the Portuguese and that dentistry had been forgotten.
He also said that the SMD is worried because the Government “is not interested in the oral health of the Portuguese” and recalled that one of the demands, long promised by successive Governments, is the creation of a career for dentists for the integration of these professionals into the Unified Health System (SUS).
According to João Neto, there are 152 dentists working in the NHS “in different situations”among 22 hired as senior technicians – “that’s not a career” – others hired through temporary employment companies and even those who are working in health centers, but without the Local Health Units (ULS) knowing how to hire them.
“Because as there is no dentist career in the SUS, they don’t even know how they are going to hire these dentists. Therefore, there is a huge mess”, he pointed out.
He mentioned, on the other hand, having visited health centers across the country and having seen “everything”, from doctors “working in precarious situations”medical offices whose conditions “are an attack on public health” or more than 30 that are new, but were not launched because a dentist was not hired.
Still in terms of demands, he added lack of a National Oral Health Plan“promised by the Prime Minister until the end of the year”, and which currently translates into dentist checks which in 40% of cases are not used.
He also said that the SMD will continue to wait for a meeting to be scheduled with the minister, but also left the guarantee that new combat actions are being considered.
Dentists applaud minister
On the other hand, a few hours after the union’s attack, the Brazilian Association of Public Service Dentists (APOMED-SP) applauded the “effort of the Ministry of Health” for improving oral health care in Portugal.
The association “recognizes and publicly expresses the efforts of the Ministry of Health and the Executive Board of the SNS with the commitment previously made in the effort to improve oral health care in Portugal”, states the president of APOMED-SP in a statement sent to Lusa.
The association highlights that it has met with the SUS Executive Board and says that “important steps were taken in the implementation of strategies that aim to facilitate the population’s access to oral health care within the scope of the NHS”.
According to President Antonio Pereira da Costa, the advances include “the guidelines contained in the manual for the creation and development of Oral Health Services, as well as the commitment to the effort in the process of hiring dentists for the SUS”.
