Antônio Cotrim / LUSA
The Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins
The number of people who are unduly admitted to hospitals continues to increase. At the end of April, there were 3493 beds unduly occupied in the SNS.
The information was presented this Wednesday by the Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martinsin Parliament, in the Parliamentary Health Committee.
Nearly 12% of inappropriate hospitalizations concern citizens awaiting court decisions. In some cases, the wait exceeds a year.
According to , the minister is being heard at the Parliamentary Health Committee. The objective is to clarify the reasons for high occupancy rates due to non-clinical decisions and the measures underway to reduce the phenomenon.
On Tuesday, the Portuguese Association of Hospital Administrators (APAH) warned of this increase, called for urgent responses and reinforcement of home care teams.
“In recent months the situation has worsened, and the number of unduly occupied spaces that we estimated in March is already much higher. This is not normal, as it was normal to have a reduction in the summer”, he said Xavier Barretopresident of APAH.
The latest APAH Social Admissions Barometer, released in March, recorded 2807 people admitted to hospitals despite being clinically discharged, a situation that for the State exceeds .
At the beginning of May, the minister had admitted in Parliament that the SNS’s response capacity is “greatly diminished” due to people who remain admitted to hospitals after being clinically discharged.
At the hearing, at the request of the PS, Xavier Barreto said that this value is underestimated, as only accounts for direct costs and is based on a outdated value table. Taking into account the evolution of the situation, he alluded to the urgency of responses on the ground, especially at home, with reinforcement of continuous home care teams.
The person responsible also defended a change in the model for providing this care, which should migrate more to the home and to more informal caregivers.
