Santo António Hospital, in Porto
There were the necessary materials to carry out the operation, at that time, that day, but the hospital administration lacked authorization to use them. The patient had been waiting for the operation for years.
Elisabete Ramos Mendes been waiting for several years for a column operation.
On October 17th, I was finally going to undergo surgery, at the Hospital de Santo António, but the surgery was canceled.
When I was already in the operating room and with the catheter in place for anesthesia, the doctors informed her that the administration did not authorize the operation.
“At 7:30 am on the 17th, I was at the hospital, the nurses prepared me and took me to the operating room. She had already inserted the catheter to be anesthetized when, Suddenly I saw the doctors talking to each other“, he told .
Elisabete noticed that something was not right, seeing the doctors gathered and talking: “One of the doctors came to my side and told me that I would not be operated on, because there was no authorization from the administration to use the material needed for the surgery. He told me that the material was in the hospital, but doctors could not use it“.
As she told JN, that day Elisabete left Santo António Hospital with indication to return the following week for surgery.
However, “the day before the scheduled date, they called me to postpone again the surgery, with the justification that there was still no authorization from the administration. I had an appointment scheduled for February” – he reported.
The patient requested clarification from the board of directors of the Hospitalwhich highlighted communication problems. Not an apologylamented Elisabete Mendes.
“They gave me two email addresses to register a police report, but, after almost a month, they still haven’t responded to the emails. The administration also never spoke to me, nor did they apologize,” he said.
Ao JN, o Hospital Santo António admitted “the failure of internal communication and apologized to the citizen for the inconvenience.”
The board of directors of the Santo António Local Health Unit told the morning newspaper that Elisabete’s surgery “requires the implementation of innovative technological devices, of absolutely exceptional use”, and it was not possible to “develop the complex administrative procedures leading to their timely acquisition , which are still in progress.”
Elisabete, aged 54, has problems with her back that only surgical intervention can solve: “I have been due for surgery for several years, but Covid-19 got in the way and it was only in May of this year that I was scheduled for the operation to put some screws.”
