Santos Silva says the Medical Association does not have the authority to open an investigation into Lacerda’s sales

The President of the Assembly of the Republic said this Thursday that the Order of Physicians does not have the authority to initiate a disciplinary investigation against the Socialist MP Lacerda Sales for actions he committed as Minister of Health.

This position was voiced by Augusto Santos Silva at the end of the Council of Europe North-South 2023 award ceremony, which took place in the Senate hall and was closed by the President of the Republic Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

Asked about the case of Portuguese-Brazilian twins treated with Zolgensma for spinal muscular atrophy at the Santa Maria Hospital in 2019 at a total cost of four million euros, Augusto Santos Silva commented on one of the developments in the case.

“As President of the Assembly of the Republic, the only thing I can say on this matter is that it does not seem to me that the Order of Doctors can launch a disciplinary investigation against the deputy. [do PS] Lacerda Sales for actions he may have taken not as a doctor, but as a ruler. As President of the Assembly of the Republic, and therefore President of all deputies, this is the only thing I can say,” he said.

Augusto Santos Silva then stressed that the Medical Association “has no statutory authority to take any action regarding acts performed by doctors not as doctors but in the performance of other duties.”

On Tuesday, Medical Association President Carlos Cortes announced that he had asked the Disciplinary Council of the Southern Region to evaluate the conduct of all doctors involved in the case of the Portuguese-Brazilian twins, including former Secretary of State for Health António Lacerda Sales, to understand whether there are disciplinary issues, in which he can intervene.

Carlos Cortes told Lusa that “taking into account all the information received”, he asked the Disciplinary Council “to evaluate this case, to evaluate all the doctors, their behavior, their decisions from the point of view of ethical and deontological parameters.”

“That is, in this particular case, and the Secretary of State, in short, both on the part of the government, on the part of the management of the hospital itself, the clinical management, and on the part of the doctors directly involved in the maintenance of the hospital or other places where there may have been medical intervention,” – he said.

His request to the Medical Association’s Southern Region Disciplinary Board was that it “undertake this assessment, this investigative process, this investigative process to try to understand whether there is a disciplinary matter here that the Medical Association can get involved in.” , he added.

When asked about the internal review of the case carried out by the Hospital University of Northern Lisbon, the President of the Assembly of the Republic stated that he did not know its contents.

“I know that at least one parliamentary group has already made this request. [do PS]. And so it will be submitted to parliament. It is very important that the processes that are ongoing, not only the internal audits such as the one opened by the Inspectorate General of Medical Activities (IGAS), as well as the one announced by the Attorney General’s Office, are completed so that we have information. Until then, based on partial information or unconfirmed allegations, I will obviously not comment,” he replied.

In November, TVI reported the case of two twin children living in Brazil, who had meanwhile acquired Portuguese citizenship and came to Portugal in 2019 to receive the drug Zolgensma for spinal muscular atrophy, at a total cost of four million euros.

Marcelo Rebelo de Souza, who has already submitted documentation on this matter to the PGR and confirmed that his son Nuno Rebelo de Souza contacted him about the need for treatment for the children, denies any interference in the process.