Nurses protest against Chavez hospital closures

Nurses gathered this Friday in front of the Chaves Hospital in the Vila Real area to warn of the difficulties caused by the closure of pediatric, pediatric and orthopedic emergency services for users and health workers.

The Portuguese Union of Nurses (SEP) has canceled the national strike planned for this Friday, but has maintained a concentration intended to warn of the closure in the month of November of services at the Chaves Hospital, located in the Centro Hospitalar de Trasos. -Montes and Alto Douro (CHTMAD), headquartered in Vila Real, have suffered the most in the region from doctors being excused for working overtime.

“I worked in the pediatric service until a week ago. The closure of the service took us by surprise and, no matter how much indignation, anxiety and great sadness we have, we think not only about ourselves, because we have worked in this service for many years, we think about our children who will feel helpless, unprotected and without pediatric support, whether medical or nursing,” said Felicidade Estevez.

Assigned to the pediatric service, this nurse was mobilized to the adult service, but the rest of his colleagues, he said, were transferred to Vila Real.

Felicidade Estevez hopes that the closure of this service in Chavez “will be temporary” but admitted that they may be “putting a sieve over the sun.”

“We really want pediatrics to come back to us because our children need it and deserve it,” he stressed, explaining that pediatric patients requiring hospitalization should go to the Vila Real Hospital.

Inpatient pediatric services closed due to unavailability of the pediatric emergency department at Chavez Hospital during November. Consultations, examinations and children’s day care remain open.

Lusa has attempted to speak with CHTMAD but has so far been unsuccessful.

Francisco Alves, an emergency nurse, stressed that today’s protest is against the closure of services in Chavez, a situation that he classified as “unacceptable” and jeopardizing “the care provided to the population.”

“We’re talking about a medical-surgical emergency and will no longer be if they continue to take away our orthopedic and surgical care. Not to mention the pediatric service, which has now closed and I don’t know if it will close. reopen Colleagues are very angry and concerned,” he said.

Francisco Alves emphasized that “the population of the interior must have the same rights as the inhabitants of the coast.”

“I know that the ambulances that provide care here in the region are sent to Porto with orthopedic patients. There is also no orthopedics in Vila Real at the moment. This is very bad, the population should think about it, and politicians should think about it. in this,” he said, highlighting the “instability” in professional and personal lives that nurses feel.

He also noted that Chaves is about 70 kilometers from Vila Real and 150 kilometers from Porto, and Montalegre is more than 200 kilometers away.

Alfredo Gómez, leader of the AKP, explained that the strike was suspended due to the political crisis caused by the resignation of the prime minister, but it was decided to maintain the concentration in Chavez because the nurses “could not remain calm” in the face of the closure of services in this territories from the “Deep Subsoil”.

“The hospital in Vila Real is also already overcrowded, and if we continue to transfer more patients there, the problem will spread from here to Vila Real,” he stressed.

Alfredo Gomes did not want to talk about the struggle of other classes, namely doctors who refuse to work overtime beyond the 150 required by law, but recalled that the government will work at full capacity until December and that the state budget will be approved.

“And we see issues in the budget that are not beneficial to keeping these services open, namely hiring staff,” he said.