Internal audit of the case in which a child was referred by an operator on the SNS24 line to an emergency room that was not open has begun. But there are already talks of similar situations in other parts of the country.
The Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, guaranteed this Thursday that an internal audit is underway into the case that occurred during the Christmas period that prolonged an urgent situation that could have been resolved more quickly.
It all happened this week. On Monday, Tiago, 5 years old, the son of Vanda Almeida, from Torres Vedras, had fever that had not gone down for three days. He was treated at the primary care unit, says .
However, on Christmas Day, Wednesday, the child continued to feel unwell, with ear and throat pain. The hand then decided to call SNS24. She waited for an hour and a half to be attended to.
When she was finally seen, she was told to take her son to the pediatric emergency department at Torres Vedras Hospital. However, Vanda saw on the online page what this urgency was closedeven though, on the phone, they insisted that they were not.
The other closest hospital was Caldas da Rainha, 40 kilometers from home. That’s where she went, and when she was finally seen, she was told that her son had ear infections.
They were five hours of suffering in a situation that could not have lasted longer so long, if it weren’t for an error in SNS24 communication. Now, it was opened an internal auditwhich is already underway, to the situation, guarantees the Minister of Health.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has already praised the ongoing audit, in an interview with . “It is important in the National Health Service to pay great attention to people’s lives and specific problems. It’s a good sign that the minister realized there was an error and that a person through an error has been harmed.”
Using the same channel, the Shared Services of the Ministry of Health (SPMS) guarantee that “the error that led to the reported situation resulted from a incorrect parameterization in the Master Data System (SDM) by the Local Health Unit (ULS), which did not identify the closure of the facility during the December 25th holiday”.
Despite everything, points out other similar cases that occurred this week, in which the same mistake was made.
SNS 24 line would have sent other users to emergencies that were closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. One of the cases mentioned is that of pregnant sent to ULS in Abrantes, whose closure of the birthing block was not communicated to SNS24.
