Hospital maternity wards in Santa Maria and Caldas da Rainha will close for repairs in the summer, and the plan is to keep 27 of the country’s 41 maternity hospitals operating at full capacity until September.
Seasonal Summer Plan 2023 – Seasonal Summer Plan 2023, which is scheduled to run from June to September, includes 41 maternity hospitals in the country and provides assistance from three private units, according to the Executive Board of the National Health Service (DE-SNS) released this Thursday. in Lisbon and the Tagus Valley.
Of the 41 maternity hospitals, 27 remain fully operational, nine will remain open on scheduled closing days and in rotation with other departments, and two will even close for work: Caldas da Rainha closes from June 1st and Santa Maria from August 1st.
While the obstetric unit at Centro Hospitalar do Oeste (Caldas da Rainha) is closed (four to five months), services will be concentrated at Centro Hospitalar de Leiria, which has been reinforced with staff (doctors and nurses), equipment and will operate without interruption seven days a week, no breaks for unforeseen circumstances.
In this way, the Centro Hospitalar do Médio Tejo, EPE, which closed in rotation on weekends, has returned to continuous operation seven days a week, “without periods of unforeseen circumstances to support this process”, clarifies DE-SNS, adding that the District Hospital of Santarém on weekends it does not work in turns, as it has been since the end of last year.
During the closing of the Santa Maria quarter (Lisbon) in August and September, services will be concentrated in the San Francisco Xavier Hospital (Centro Hospitalar Lisboa Oeste), which closes on weekends, and from August 1st, it resumes operations without interruption seven days a week.
Until he starts receiving births from Santa Maria, Xavier’s San Francisco Maternity Hospital will be the subject of interventions to increase its capacity.
“This unit was built several years ago, is designed for 4,500-5,000 births, is designed for motherhood and childhood and has excellent humanization and safety conditions, with highlighted contours,” emphasizes DE-SNS.
According to the schedule drawn up by DE-SNS, in the north of the country, all 13 maternity hospitals will be fully operational during the summer, as will seven existing maternity hospitals in the central region and three in Alentejo. In the Algarve, of the two maternity units included, one will operate at full capacity (Faro) and the other (Portimão) with scheduled closing days, closing every 15 days on weekends.
The region of Lisbon and the Tagus Valley deserves the biggest change, as only three maternity hospitals (Abrantes, Cascais and Maternidad Alfredo da Costa) are operating at full capacity from 1 June to the end of September.
The schedule compiled by DE-SNS foresees that eight units will operate with planned closing days: Santarém, Vila Franca de Xira, Beatriz Angelo (Lures), Fernando da Fonseca (Amadora Sintra), García de Horta (Almada) , Barreiro, Setubal and San Francisco Xavier, the latter only in June and July.
It highlights that in the Setúbal peninsula, the Centro Hospitalar Barreiro-Montijo and the Centro Hospitalar de Setúbal maintain the programmed conditions that they already had since the end of 2022, with which the García de Orta (Almada) Hospital is linked, alternately .
To ensure that at least two maternity units on the Setúbal peninsula are always open at the same time, the Centro Hospitalar Barreiro-Montijo is now fully open on weekends and only closes on certain days of the week.
In a note accompanying information about the Safe Childbirth Plan for the summer, DE-SNS emphasizes that due to the “direct impact” on pregnant women, newborns and their families, the gynecology and obstetrics emergency services network “deserves a high priority.”
It also highlights the need to protect “the principles of equity, quality, preparedness, humanization and predictability of social media care” and says it will evaluate the results of the outlined plan, which will serve as a basis for future decisions.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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