SNS wants to open medical clearance centers across the country by the end of 2024

The National Health Service (SNS) wants to establish Medical and Psychological Assessment Centers (CAMP) across the country by the end of 2024, the chief executive said on Monday in Matosinhos, the site of a pilot project that is already issuing certificates.

“This is an innovative service for users. The goal is that when someone needs to renew their driver’s license, hunting license, nautical sports license, use and possession of weapons, in short, those medical certificates that are needed, instead of making an appointment with your family doctor, you can easily schedule this examination at this location,” Fernando Araujo explained to reporters at the end of his visit to the CAMP of the local health department (ULS) of Matosinhos, in the Porto region. .

The Matosinhos Center is part of a pilot project that also involves ULS Alto Minho, whose CAMP was also visited this Monday by Fernando Araujo in Viana do Castelo.

“We really want to replicate this model during this year and next, when Community Health Units (ULS) are being set up. There will be two good cases of evaluation, use, and these will be two successes. I have no doubts,” the SNS chief executive said, adding that the goal is to have these services available throughout the country by the end of next year.

According to Fernando Araujo, CAMP has two advantages: “Firstly, it frees up the family doctor to treat acute illnesses, for patients who really need to see each other, removing this more administrative and bureaucratic area from the family doctor.”

“On the other side [o utente] In the end, you will have a very simple, very simple service, you can even register on the user portal and thus receive an answer to your problems, in this case a certificate, in order to be able to renew the license, in a very relaxed environment. way,” he added.

Fernando Araujo also noted that there is less friction in the “doctor-user trust relationship”, which sometimes “totters when the doctor thinks the user cannot drive” due to age or other medical issues, and thus these relationships “It no longer has a negative impact,” he said.

“This is another service that makes this assessment and calmly decides whether the user is medically fit to drive,” the person in charge explained.

According to Fernando Araujo, in Matosinhos “bookings opened last week and there are more than 60 bookings already made, people are easily embracing this concept.”