// Antônio Cotrim / Lusa; / Serg64 / Depositphotos
Hospital Beatriz Ângelo, Loures
This was one of the ways found by the Ministry of Health to minimize constraints on emergency services, due to the lack of specialized professionals in some areas of the country, which means that it is not possible to guarantee full teams in certain services.
A regional urgency gynecology and obstetrics that will operate at the Hospital de Loures, opens its doors at 9am this Monday, the first being created by the Ministry of Health within the scope of the new model to serve the lack of professionals of health.
A regional urgency is based on a model exceptional in which two or more nearby ULS concentrate service emergency in a single hospitalwhen it is not possible to keep emergency departments operating in all of them at the same time.
This was one of the ways found by the Ministry of Health to minimize constraints of emergency services of this specialty, due to the lack of sufficient doctors to fill the rosters, and which has been more evident in the Setúbal Peninsula, where a regional obstetrics emergency is also planned.
According to the Executive Directorate of the National Health Service (DE-SNS), the gynecology and obstetrics emergency department in Loures-Odivelas/Tejo Estuary, which will have differentiated perinatal support, will be operational 24 hours a dayseven days a week, in Beatriz Ângelo Hospitalin Loures.
The concentration of services raises reservations from unionswho claim that the measure was taken without there being any reinforcement in the hiring of health professionals and that, in the case of doctors, they cannot be forced to move from their place of work to another hospital to provide emergency care.
DE-SNS said that the preparation and management of emergency schedules for regional emergencies will be coordinated between service directors of the respective local health units (ULS), under their coordination.
As teams from ULS Loures/Odivelas will guarantee 80% of the continuous provision of emergency care and those of ULS Esttuário do Tejo the other remaining 20%, but the Southern Zone Doctors’ Union has already warned that, despite the Hospital de Loures having an increase in service, the team “will only have the reinforcement of a nurse who will go from Vila Franca de Xira”.
Despite being closure scheduled of the obstetrics emergency in Vila Franca de Xira, which also serves the municipalities of Azambuja, Arruda dos Vinhos, Alenquer and Benavente, the executive management clarified that the maternity ward of this hospital will continue to function.
All remaining activities remain operational at Vila Franca de Xira Hospital, including scheduled births and open consultations of gynecology and obstetrics for non-emergency acute illness, said the DE-SNS.
The entity led by Alvaro Almeida justified the creation of regional emergencies with the lack of specialized professionals in some areas of the country, which means that it is not possible to guarantee full teams in certain services in some periods.
The National Federation of Doctors warned, however, that the measure could be more comprehensive, with the leader Joana Bordalo and Sá telling Lusa that the perspective is that regional emergencies will extend to various specialtiesnot just obstetrics and gynecology, and “across the country”.
The Government predicted that the regional emergency in the Setúbal Peninsula, which will be located at the Almada Hospital and which will lead to closure of the Barreiro emergency departmentwas the first in the country to come into operation, even saying that it would be at the beginning of this year, but, this week, the minister Ana Paula Martins mentioned that this will only happen when joint scales are completed.
