Home -treated patients have been 55,000 since 2018. It is the equivalent of 1 year of operation of large hospitals.
The home hospitalization program was created in 2018. It consists of traveling medical teams to the patient’s home rather than staying in the hospital.
According to data advanced by Delfim Rodrigues, coordinator of the Portuguese home hospitalization programs, to the first months of this year spared 3.3 million from euros to the NHS and continues to widen.
This is because “the cost of treating these patients low on average to half When treatment is assured at home instead of a hospital, ”he explains. According to December data from the Central Administration of the Health System (ACSS), the average cost of each patient admitted to the hospital is 261 euros a day. Half are 130,5 euros.
Since the measure was created, 55,000 patients have already enjoyed this service, which, explains the coordinator, equals an entire year of operation of large hospitals Like São João, in Porto (which treats between 48 thousand and 50 thousand people a year).
At the end of February, 378 patients received this type of assistance. 378 patients exceed the capacity of a hospital such as Vila Franca de Xira, with 218 beds and 1500 employees. To treat this number of people at home, 400 employees are required.
For Delfim Rodrigues, this is “a kind of hospital virtual with more supply capacity than many physical hospitals – Barcelos has 117 beds, Beja 116 and Évora 310…, and whose construction does not involve concrete or iron ”.
Joana Bordalo and Sá, president of the National Federation of Doctors (FNAM), says that the government should be more supported.
Says that “it is evident that It is better for a patient, being at homewith your family, and with clinical support, is better than being in a hospital. Unfortunately, this model was not among the priorities of the government. And, on the other hand, The doctors we have do not arrive to guarantee consultationsurgencies and hospitalizations in hospitals, let alone hospitalization at home. ”
In addition, he explains Delfim Rodrigues, “Unfortunately, hospitals have ceased to have physical spaces for the sick to defile, because health professionals were occupying them. Even the dining rooms have been disappearing, which forces many patients to make the meals in bed without need. ”
“Exams like pet [tomografia por emissão de positrões] or a tac [tomografia axial computorizada] cannot be made at homeBut everything that results from the harvest of biological material, yes, ”he says.
“That is above all important in the most peripheral municipalities, Often without effective urban transport networks, and where patients catch a bus at eight o’clock in the morning to return only at nine in the evening, sometimes only with a bread and a can of preservation.
