“She was warned, she didn’t act, she lied, she must leave.” Has the INEM debacle gone too far?

Chega and Bloco de Esquerda demand the resignation of Ana Paula Martins, who assumed “full responsibility” for the consequences of the delays at INEM that led to 11 deaths. “It’s gone too far.”

The Minister of Health visits this Tuesday the INEMsix days after the contingency measures to minimize delays in responding to the population, an issue that led Ana Paula Martins to give explanations in parliament.

To be heard in the Assembly of the Republic on the State Budget proposal for 2025, the minister took responsibility for the consequences of delays in answering calls from INEM, committing to take the necessary measures to refound the institute.

“There is no doubt that, as Minister of Health, I take full responsibility which is why it went less well and I undertake, on behalf of the Government, to carry out the necessary measures to refound INEM”, said Ana Paula Martins.

The minister began her intervention by talking about the latest events at INEM, with the delays in answering calls caused by strikes by pre-hospital emergency technicians and civil servants.

In this regard, he assumed that the reorganization of urgent and emergency services is “the highest priority” for this Government and said he was in parliament “face to face” to “listen to the proposals, comments and motivations” of deputies to “improve the path chosen and determined by the Government program”.

“I don’t run away. I don’t lie and I don’t hide.”said Ana Paula Martins.

After at least 10 deaths allegedly related to failures in the INEM response, several inquiries were opened and several opposition parties directly called for the resignation of the Minister of Health, while others challenged the Prime Minister to assess whether Ana Paula Martins is capable of remaining in office.

In response, Luís Montenegro considered that difficulties at INEM cannot be resolved with the dismissal of Ana Paula Martinsclaiming that the political consequence to be drawn is to resolve the institute’s problems.

“We are witnessing a disaster”

PS parliamentary leader Alexandra Leitão stated this Monday in Porto that “there has been a lot of incompetence in health management” and that the Government failed to fulfill the promises announced in the electoral campaign.

“In terms of health, I fear that we are witnessing a disaster (…) there is no measure to stop the loss of health professionals to the private sector, namely doctors, which was one of the proposals presented by the PS in conversations with the Government in the phase prior to the delivery of the budget”, he began by saying the socialist deputy.

And he continued: “Emergencies are available in the summer, much worse than what had happened in other summers with PS governments and today is the situation with INEM, which is very serious“.

Alluding to the fact that the minister will be heard on Tuesday in the Assembly of the Republic, the socialist parliamentary leader advised the minister that “it is not worth mentioning structural problems that may exist, because what is at stake is the management of a strike situation that the minister was warned and did not act and, without wanting to get ahead of myself because there are inquiries taking place, but We certainly have situations of loss of life due to thiswithout prejudice to the causal link still to be determined”.

“The responsibility for what is happening at INEM falls directly on the Minister of Health and the Prime Minister who, faced with this situation, preferred to hire a communications agency, as if the problem were one of communication”, he added.

Maintaining the critical tone, Alexandra Leitão insisted that Health is “in an emergency situation and the measures being taken are the wrong ones“.

The PS bench has also asked that the president of the institute that coordinates the Integrated Medical Emergency System (SIEM), Sérgio Janeiro, be heard at the Health Commission urgently, alleging the need to “ascertain responsibility for the collapse” of the system, a request that will be voted on this afternoon.

Montenegro? “Then don’t come and complain”

The president of Chega, André Ventura, this Monday again called for the resignation of the ministers of Health and Internal Administration, once again considering that they are .

André Ventura warned the prime minister that, if he keeps those government officials in office, he will be causing a “further deterioration” of the parliamentary support base for the executive.

“Then don’t complain that you have lost all parliamentary support and that you have no way to go anymore because it is these attitudes of arrogance, arrogance and indifference towards the suffering that are causing and that are leading to this destruction of political and parliamentary support. So, yes, we think that these two leaders are toxic and should leave”, he reinforced.

In relation to the Minister of Health, Ventura alluded to the allegations.

“If not even 11 deaths lead a minister to realize the political fragility she is in and to resign, then I no longer know what can happen. [levá-la a pedir a demissão]”, he criticized.

“It’s gone too far”

BE argued that the situation at INEM and in the health sector “It’s gone too far” and insisted that the minister should resign as she did not have the political conditions to resolve the problems of this institute.

“The Government knew that the situation at INEM was dramatic and chose not to act. He chose to wrestle with INEM professionals, with technicians, when he knew that INEM was depending on overtime work. It’s a irresponsible and authoritarian attitude on the part of the minister and that is why BE insists that the minister resign, because There are no political conditions to solve INEM’s problems”, defended Fabian Figueiredo, in statements in the Assembly of the Republic.

The blocker stated that the Government “could have prevented the strike at INEM if it had answered the phone to the union” and, in addition to having “decided not to do so”, “Lied to the country”he accused

“Everyone knows, the whole country knows, that the minister, the prime minister, the INEM management, knew 10 days before the strike started that it would take place. The Government also knew that INEM depended on the extraordinary work of its professionals”, he criticized.

Accusing the executive of having been “absolutely irresponsible, negligent and authoritarian in conducting the entire INEM process since he took over”, Fabian Figueiredo appealed to the parties to approve the party’s proposed amendment to the State Budget for 2025 “to hire the technicians missing” and “value the salaries of technicians” at this institute.

“According to information provided by the media, 11 people have already died. This went too far. Therefore, that the people that are needed at INEM be hired, that an agreement be reached once and for all with INEM technicians, that these professions be valued so that it is possible to fill the entire INEM staff of technicians, psychologists, nurses, everyone who is needed, because we are talking about the emergency medical service”, he warned.

In the opinion of the blockers, Ana Paula Martins “has already shown, time after time, in the case of INEM or in the catastrophic management of emergencies this summer, that must go away”.

Task force proposal

The National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (ANTEM) said this Monday that it proposed to the Minister of Health the creation of a ‘task force’ to identify weaknesses and propose concrete measures to prevent constraints on emergency services.

In a short statement, the association revealed that it proposed to Ana Paula Martins the “creation of a Task Force, with a view to identifying weaknesses and proposing concrete measures to alleviate the constraints currently felt in Emergency Medical Services”.

The lack of resources at INEM, including pre-hospital emergency technicians (TEPH), has been recurrent in recent years, but it became more evident on November 4, when during the morning shift and 44 during the afternoon shift, in addition delays in answering calls at the Urgent Patient Guidance Center (CODU).

This situation was due to the civil service strike that took place that day, but also to the TEPH strike overtime, which was, however, canceled after an emergency meeting on Thursday between the Ministry of Health and the union of the class.

On the eve of the suspension of the strike, the INEM board of directors was forced to implement several contingency measures to improve the functioning of its CODUs, such as creating a triage flow for calls with waiting times longer than three minutes, integrating nurses into CODUs and reviewing data passing procedures for teams in the field.

Over the weekend, the institute ensured that average service times registered, on average, 20 seconds of waiting, as a result of the measures implemented the previous week

Ana Paula Martins’ visit to the headquarters of the National Institute of Medical Emergency (INEM), in Lisbon, is scheduled for 3:30 pm this Tuesday.