The average waiting time in the emergency room at Portimão Hospital normalized during the morning of this Monday and at 12:00 it was less than 15 minutes, when there were three users with yellow bracelets waiting for care after screening, Lusa found.
During the night, the average waiting time for assistance to users classified as urgent reached several hours, as at night the services “work with reduced teams”, a hospital source told Lusa.
Speaking to Lusa, the president of the board of directors of the Algarve Local Health Unit (ULS), Tiago Botelho, justified the increase in waiting times with “the high affluence in certain periods”.
“Unfortunately, at this time[emergencies}haveseenagreaternumberofpeopleatnightwhichleadstoanincreaseinwaitingtimesduetothenumberofprofessionalsondutyintheemergencyroom”heobserved[asurgências}têmregistadoduranteoperíodonoturnoumamaiorafluênciaoquegeraumagravamentodostemposdeesperadevidoaonúmerodeprofissionaisemserviçonaurgência”notou
According to Tiago Botelho, the data presented on the National Health Service (SNS) portal “is true, but does not reflect the numbers at the moment, because they are not updated to the minute, but rather the average of the last two hours”.
On the other hand, he added, the data presented on the SNS portal “encompasses the various medical specialties, resulting in users in the surgical area having a longer waiting time, because there are fewer specialists who are assigned to the emergency service”.
“We are talking about two neurosurgeons, two or three general surgeons and the same number of orthopedists, while in other medical areas we have four times that number of professionals”, he highlighted.
The official said that if surgery patients need to go to the operating room, “it only works with one room and an anesthetist”.
“Doctors make their priority scale and take patients to the operating room in order of severity. A situation that is regular throughout the year”, he highlighted.
Tiago Botelho highlighted that all serious situations “are attended to immediately, resulting in longer waiting times for users in less worrying situations”.
“Patients who have emerging needs are seen at the appropriate time”, he guaranteed.
To reduce waiting times in the emergency room, which includes hospitals in Faro, Portimão and Lagos and the Center for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (CMR) Sul, in São Brás de Alportel, “there was an increase of 51 beds for hospitalization”, he stressed.
Thus, at Faro Hospital there was an increase of eight beds, Portimão (13), Lagos (12) and CMR Sul (18).
Tiago Botelho also said that “the medical and nursing teams have been reinforced to support the beds now created, and scheduled surgical activity has been suspended, except for urgent or more serious clinical situations”.
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