Rui Minderico / Lusa
The Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins
At least one person died because of the strike in INEM. Ana Paula Martins does not leave and refuses direct relationship.
March 4, 2001. Hintze Ribeiro Bridge collapsed in Entre-os-Rios. A bus and three cars fell to the Douro River and 59 people died.
Shortly thereafter, already at dawn, Jorge Coelho resigned. The then Minister of Social Equipment (today would be Minister of Infrastructure) assumed the political responsibility of the accident.
“I wouldn’t look good with my conscience if you didn’t. The guilt cannot die single. In this sense, the political consequences have to be taken. I would not be well with my conscience if I continued, ”said Jorge Coelho, who explained at a press conference that, even having no direct responsibility in the tragedy, was the ministry leader in question-so it was imposed that he resigned.
Jorge Coelho had visited that bridge a year earlier; He decided at the time to build a bridge in that place because the Hintze Ribeiro Bridge had “some degradation at the board level”.
The Prime Minister, António Guterres, considered the resignation of Jorge Coelho’s resignation: “It is a Attitude of unusual dignity who surely is free of any responsibility personal for the tragic events that mourn the country. ”
Ana Paula Martins, 2025
That is, for Jorge Coelho, “It was unbearable to have deaths associated with his nameI couldn’t live with this pain, ”says José Manuel Mestre today.
The commentator was recalling Jorge Coelho’s case because of the current situation Minister of Health.
ANA PAULA MARTINS He knows that the General Inspection of Health Activities (Igas) showed that the death of a 53-year-old Pombal (Leiria) man could have been avoided if the victim had been rescued at a reasonable minimum time-at the time there was an INEM strike.
In the first reaction to the report, the government that the delay in relief that led to the death of the user is related to the lack of zeal of two professionals, who intervened in the process, not the strike in INEM.
The opposition wants the minister to make statements – or fired, as has been heard for months.
But Ana Paula Martins doesn’t leave. The Minister of Health thinks that “what is in question, through a report that is the right space to make this evaluation, is that there was no – I repeat – There was no relationship between the unfortunate occurrence and the strike of INEM“.
Therefore, Ana Paula Martins is still available to “work under the leadership” of Prime Minister Luís Montenegro-who referred the discussion of reports to the Assembly of the Republic. And keeps the minister, as happened when the new government was announced.
But the minister is under a “Huge fragility”, comments José Manuel Mestre on the radio: “You have done a number of things to hide a problem. Always escapes. It is criticized for all the opposition, even by the PS, who does not want to lift waves. ”
