Minister says winter ‘always puts a lot of pressure’ on health care

On Wednesday, the Health Secretary suggested the NHS winter plan was being developed “six to seven months” ahead to anticipate winter challenges which “always put a lot of pressure” on services.

“Winter is a very difficult time, if summer is a time of great pressure, then winter is a time of much greater and even more significant pressure,” said Ana Paula Martins, adding that the Ministry of Health, the Executive Director of the National Health Service (SNS), the General Directorate of Health and the Local Health Units (ULS) “are working six to seven months in advance to prepare as early as possible” and achieve “the best possible results” for the population.

The government official spoke to journalists in Tondela, Viseu district, where she inaugurated renovation works at the Family Health Unit (USF) of Cândido de Figueiredo in Canas de Santa Maria and the Caramulo Personal Health Care Centre (UCSP) of Campo de Besteiros, with an investment of more than half a million euros.

Ana Paula Martins said the goal of this work is to “be able to anticipate all the problems that vary throughout the country, because countries are not all the same” and to have “the best possible scale of human resources.”

Asked about the shortage of human resources and how this was being addressed, the minister said that “there are exactly six to seven months to understand what scales need more reinforcement” and that time is “very important” for such planning.

“Naturally, there is always a level of uncertainty in healthcare, which never allows us, it is absolutely impossible, to guarantee that everything will go 100%. Now, if we do not start working in advance, then nothing good will happen,” he said.

Asked whether the scale of the response that required greater strengthening had already been identified, the minister said: “ULS is doing this work because this work belongs to ULS, its clinical directors, service directors and emergency services directors.”

The official stressed that winter “is by nature a very difficult period” in addition to summer, as there are “other situations, especially in terms of respiratory infections that affect older people.”

“That’s why the vaccination campaign should be pushed forward as far as possible, but I want to say that winter is always a time of great pressure on health services and that we, as soon as we entered this year, began to struggle with the vaccination plan in winter,” he concluded.