The regional PCP organization in Coimbra spoke out this Wednesday against the creation of a local health department, which would lead to a “mega-merger” of the various units in the district, and warned of the risk of closing contactless services.
In a press release sent to Lusa, the PCP warned that the Local Health Unit (ULS) of Coimbra will add the Hospital and University Center of Coimbra (CHUC), already the result of a “mega-merger,” to the Arcebispo João Hospital. Crisostomo, from Cantanhede, to the Center for Rehabilitation Medicine of the Region of Centro Rovisco Pais and 26 health centers.
“ULS Coimbra will cover more than 350,000 residents, more than 10,000 workers and an area of more than 7,000 square kilometers with only one emergency service,” said PCP, who warned that “the larger the ship, the stronger the storm” .
For the communists, the ULS “became an effective tool for greater concentration and greater closure of local services, causing more and more people to be put out of business by the disease.”
“Primary health care is now run by hospitals, where management is centralized. Without answers to the main problems of services, with the “blanket that remains short”, the weakest part, that is, primary health care, always appears. “, he criticized, considering that ULS is taking “further steps towards increasing the accountability of local authorities.”
In this sense, the PCP confirmed the need to reverse the merger of the Coimbra hospitals, the creation of a new maternity ward and a multipurpose emergency service in the Hospital dos Covoins, as well as continuing care units in the former Lorvan Hospital and the former pediatric hospital.
The communists also propose creating “true local health systems with legal personality and autonomous governance over hospitals and health centers,” increasing career value and compensation for health care workers, and ending “bailouts to businesses deprived of health.” “.
They also propose stopping “the process of abdicating central administration and government responsibility” in the health sector.