António Cotrim / Lusa
The coordinator of the National Commission on Women, Children and Adolescents, Alberto Caldas Afonso
The reorganization of pediatric urgencies starts this Saturday, through a pilot project involving about 20 hospitals and providing for the creation of pediatric care centers in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto.
“Clearly it is a new paradigm. It is a pilot project that we will evaluate in three months, but already in a very large area and this is the way. I have no doubt about it, ”the coordinator of the National Commission of Women, Children and Adolescents, told Lusa, told Lusa, told Alberto Caldas Afonso.
The commission’s leader presented in October a plan for the reorganization of the urgencies of gynecology, obstetrics and pediatrics, with a new model of incentives to fix doctors in the NHS “Inspired by the PPP“.
At the time, in an interview with, Caldas Afonso assumed that the “biggest challenge” in the country is prevent the closing of emergencybut was confident of ending these situations.
“Ever, some public-private partnership has closed the emergency service? It is not because they have better administrators. It is because they have management models that Allow to fix and captivate doctors“, He explains.
This new model takes into account that the Number of little urgent patients and not urgent oscillates between 40% and the 50% of those attended in the emergencybut also that the current number of experts is insufficient to keep all pediatric urgencies of Local Health Units (ULS) open.
According to Caldas Afonso, the Pediatric Clinical Care Centers (CAC-P) are intended to Patients with “green” screening (little urgent) and “Blue” (not urgent), with Porto that is operating on Saturday at Hospital da Prelada, while in Lisbon still will take place the contest for its opening.
Porto Cac-P will cover the users of the ULS of St. John, Saint Anthonyfrom Matosinhos and Gaia-Espinho, while the one from Lisbon will be directed to the ULS users of Santa Maria, São José and Western Lisbon.
These new pediatric centers will have dedicated teams of doctors, nurses and assistants, with the mandatory minimum presence of a pediatricianresponsible for the coordination, operating between 08h00 and 23h00 every day of the week and with the availability of complementary diagnostic exams.
“There will be a Offer until 23h00 of high quality where people have a proximity response in the metropolitan areas for the most basic and simplest situations that do not have to go to a hospital urgency, ”said Caldas Afonso.
The reorganization pilot project involves pediatric emergency services in the region of Lisbon and Tagus Valley, Leiria and the Porto Metropolitan Arealike several other ULS that decided to join the initiative, a total of about 20 hospitals in the country.
In practice, access to the referenced urgency becomes possible through a telephone pretry of the SNS Children and Adolescents line (A derivation of the SNS24), as well as for cases referred by INEM, health centers or another health institution, public, private or social with information signed by a doctor.
For those who access urgency without having a previous referencehospitals must ensure a means of contact with the SNS 24 line, through the administrative service or a telephone installed on site.
If the user refuses or, if for another reason, it is not possible to refer through the NHS, your registration in the Emergency Service must be assured and subsequent screening, as defined in this reorganization, which provides for several situations in which an assessment of the patient in pediatric emergency service is mandatory.
All children under six months will be compulsorily evaluated In the emergency service, as well as bedridden or wheelchair users, without the possibility of mobilization by their own means, victims of trauma, acute cardiovascular situations, cases of aggression and falls, with skull-encephalic trauma and seizures, among many others.
This reorganization also provides for the available open queries in primary health care for sick sick with little urgent (green) and a deferred observation by appointment scheduling for non -urgent (blue) cases.
The new operating model “It is in the interest of patients And it is in the interest of health professionals ”, stressed Caldas Afonso, adding that this is a solution to respond, with quality and predictability, to the lack of experts in the National Health Service, who take about 15 years to form.
“People are already realizing that it is better for thembecause they will not waste time going to a place with hours of waiting and will have a response according to their clinical situation in a safe and quality environment and service environment, ”said the expert.
