BE offers an extraordinary plan to accompany pregnant women, whether they have a family doctor or not

This Monday, BE called on the government to take four steps to respond to the SNS’s difficulties, including an emergency plan to monitor pregnant women at health centers and prevent new hires from being financially vetoed.

“The task we have thrown at the government is simple: here are four measures that can be put into practice now that can have a very important impact and can make a difference this summer in closing emergencies, especially in the care of pregnant women,” said BE coordinator Mariana Mortagua at a press conference in Lisbon, where she presented a bill that, due to parliamentary recess, can only be scheduled for September.

According to the bloc leader, “while the right is having fun discussing with PS how best to send users to private,” BE wants to have another discussion because it should “discuss not how SNS is destroyed, but how to restore” this service, “guaranteeing conditions for all professionals and all users.”

Among these measures, which are independent of negotiations between the government and specialists, is an emergency plan to guarantee the observation of pregnant women in health centers, that is, in primary health care facilities.

“More and more women are not getting their required first trimester follow-up simply because they don’t have a family doctor or can’t get to the hospital’s emergency room due to closures,” he explained, adding that BE offers a “surcharge for every hour worked at health centers” so that all pregnant women, whether or not they have a family doctor, can be accompanied.

The other of the four measures aims, in Mariana Mortagua’s words, to “prevent the Treasury from vetoing new hires,” criticizing the “perverse way” the government has found to override hospital autonomy.

“What we propose is very simple: when the action plan is submitted to the Ministry of Finance, it must be approved within 30 days, otherwise it is approved silently. Hospitals cannot be held hostage to the Ministry of Finance’s box veto to hire professionals,” he said.

If the guardianship intends to change these plans, BE’s suggestion is that there should be a technical rationale for this decision, since, according to the lockup leader, “not changing accounts could prevent SNS from having all the professionals it needs”, and it is also assumed that the approval of these activity plans will be carried out jointly by the ministries of health and finance.

Mariana Mortagua still requires that a 40% salary increase be paid to doctors who agree to stay exclusively on social media, a “simple stated measure that could save SNS a lot of money on tasks.”

“We have come to the point where we need to introduce a law that only says that hospitals that resort to illegal overtime must open vacancies in order to be able to hire professionals to fill these scales,” he suggests.