Santa Maria Hospital, in Lisbon
40 minutes trying to call the SNS Pregnant Line. More than an hour later, an SMS to stay where I was. Stories in Lisbon.
Yesterday, Monday, a new routine in emergencies obstetrics and gynecology hospitals, either in the Region of Lisbon and Tagus Valleyeither in the Hospital Leiria District.
From now on, the Pregnant women must call the SNS Pregnant Line before going to the emergency room.
But on opening morning, there was some confusion, as expected. Not all women knew about this change.
At Maternidade Alfredo da Costa, six of the 16 users who sought emergency gynecology and obstetrics they didn’t do a pre-screening mandatory telephone. That’s until noon.
One user did not want to call SNS Line 24 and the remaining five were invited to contact the service – which they did. All were treated in the emergency department.
Source from the São José Local Health Unit (ULS), which is part of the Alfredo da Costa Maternity Hospital, said that “it was an apparently normal Monday, as expected”.
Go where you are
At Santa Maria Hospital, there was a more ridiculous case, according to .
Maria Pacheco, pregnant, had pain in the early hours of Monday and went to the emergency room – without knowing to call ahead.
In the emergency, he says that tried calling the SNS Grávida Line for 40 minutes, but no one answered.
He gave up calling from his cell phone and went inside the hospital, where he has a dedicated phone for that purpose. Then he did it.
More than an hour later to have started calling, it received one message on mobile: SNS24’s recommendation was to go to… Santa Maria Hospital. Where I was already. Then it will have been attended to.
But Diogo Ayres de Campos, director of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Santa Maria Hospital, assured that “everything was within normal limits, without complications”.
The Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, said in the meantime that this pre-screening of pregnant women, when accessing emergencies, should have been implemented “many years ago”.
The minister assures that this model “guarantees greater guidance” for pregnant women, who are sent “to the place where they should be”.
