The Union of Prehospital Emergency Technicians (STEPH) will send to the State Department and Infarmed an audit report from the National Institute of Emergency Medicine (INEM) stating drug storage failures.
STEPH president Rui Lazaro told Lusa that Infarmed “regulates the use and storage of medicines” and “must ensure that they can be used.”
“In that case, they won’t. Their safety is not guaranteed,” he added.
The audit, to which Lusa had access, pointed to deficiencies in drug storage and concluded that INEM does not guarantee that all consumables are within their expiration date, which could compromise patient safety.
The audit report, conducted between May 23 and June 7, also states that INEM does not guarantee the “responsible and safe use of medicines by professionals.”
It also points to the fact that INEM periodically does not evaluate the “level of quality and relevance of the medical history”, which is a concern for STEPH.
“If this is not the last straw for the complete dismissal of the board of directors, we cannot imagine what could be and how far this negligence on the part of the Ministry of Health will go,” said Rui Lazaro.
Among other findings, including a lack of pest control, especially in one of the warehouses where supplies and medicines for national distribution are stored, experts point to how medicines are stored in some places.
In the drug warehouse, the refrigerator was overcrowded, which does not correspond to ideal storage conditions, as it does not guarantee the circulation of chilled air to all drugs due to the lack of space between the drugs, ”they cite.
They also point to the lack of working conditions and lack of personnel, believing that “human resources are not enough to fulfill the tasks of various structural units, which affects the results of the established indicators.”
As an example, the experts point to the absence of 30 prehospital emergency specialists in the Algarve regional office, including doctors, nurses, psychologists and other specialists, and write that the regional director, as a result, at the time of writing, the forecast for 3108 additional hours until the end of May .
STEPH believes that the data in the report justifies “the general dissatisfaction evident among INEM workers, as well as their poor working conditions.”
Taking into account the issues contained in the audit report, the union will forward relevant complaints to the Ministry of Health, the Labor Conditions Authority, the General Directorate of Health, Infarmed, the National Commission for Data Protection and the Ministry of Public Affairs.