In September, Nuno Melo heard in Parliament the role of the Air Force in providing emergency medical assistance together with INEM.

MPs will hear from the Minister of National Defence about the Air Force’s participation in emergency medical care together with INEM in September, after the parliamentary recess, despite the insistent request of the PS.

The consensus on the date of the hearing, 24 September, was reached only after a lengthy debate in the parliamentary National Defence Committee, during which the request put forward by the Socialists to urgently hear Nuno Melo in Parliament on the protocol with the Ministry of Health regarding the participation of the Armed Forces in the process of helicopter transport of emergency medical care with INEM was discussed.

PS MP and former minister Mariana Vieira da Silva explained that the initiative was presented after the minority government of PSD/SDS-PP “failed to introduce an amendment and approve the Council of Ministers resolution that would have allowed INEM to launch a new tender for the construction of this type of service, which puts the country in a delicate situation in terms of emergency health care.”

The socialist recalled that at the hearing on June 25, the Minister of National Defense said that the Air Force would provide, “this is the desire of the Ministry of Health”, two helicopters to provide emergency medical care.

In several recent news reports, as Vieira da Silva claims, this fact allegedly justifies “the failure to open the competition and the failure to organize a structured response by INEM.”

The PS wants to know “what has been agreed upon and under what conditions, and what is the real availability of the Air Force, which will cooperate with a service that does not originally belong to it.”

As for the PSD, MP Silverio Regalado did not object to the minister’s hearing, but warned of the difficulties of urgently scheduling the hearings since the parliamentary session ends next week, suggesting that the issue be raised in the scheduled hearings already scheduled for September.

CDS-PP MP João Almeida joked that it would be “a great opportunity to demonstrate the importance of the structural changes that were envisaged just eight years ago” during socialist rule.

“The report of the Working Group on Air Resources for Missions of Public Interest highlights the decision to replace these INEM tenders with the use of Air Force resources in missions of this type for financial and operational reasons. This saves resources for the state and provides flexibility. It is superior in terms of the use of different types of aircraft, which allows greater flexibility not only in the type of transport, but also in the deployment of assets to provide this type of service,” the centrist explained.

João Almeida, joined by IL MP Rodrigo Saraiva, asked the PS to lift the urgency of the request.

Social Democrat Silverio Regalado said that only one Socialist MP was present at a recent hearing in the Defence Committee, held at the request of the PS, and left the accusation: “Sometimes emergencies in the PS become simply a party-political issue.”

As for the PS, deputy Luis Díaz insisted on the urgency of the matter and stressed that the BBC has a series of tasks for which it no longer has sufficient human resources. PSD deputy Bruno Vitorino called on the socialists to show “common sense and reasonableness” and, together with IL, was available for the hearings that will take place at the beginning of August, outside the calendar provided for parliamentary work.

PCP MP António Filipe recalled that parliamentary work has only resumed during holidays in very exceptional situations, such as the forest fires in 2017, and warned of the risk that various parliamentary groups will start scheduling hearings outside the calendar because they believe that a certain matter is not urgent.

Following the debate, the PS lifted the urgency of the request and the hearing on September 24 was approved unanimously.