Fnam says doctors practice ‘disaster medicine’

Doctors are practicing “disaster medicine” in several departments where the number of patients in the last week of the year is excessive, the National Federation of Doctors (Fnam) said on Wednesday.

“The closure and air conditioning of almost half of the emergency services (ED) from the north to the south of the country has become something trivial in this Ministry of Health, led by Manuel Pizarro, which had no competence to attract and retain doctors in the National Health Service, in a year when the number of doctors “Pensioners reached a peak of 822,” the trade union structure said in a statement.

According to Fnam, doctors are overworked and “do not have sufficient conditions to perform their duties.”

“Shortages increased during Christmas, and the worst is feared in the last days of the year, when periods following the celebrations are traditionally more demanding in the US,” the Federation warned, highlighting “situations that typically operate below minimum standards” and that put doctors and patients at risk, e.g. , emergency department at the University Hospital of Santo Antonio in Porto.

According to the Fnam report, intern doctors “have been forced” to fill the shortage of specialists, and for several days now there has been “a single intern doctor providing external emergency care for internal diseases, and at the same time at least 140 hospitalized patients responsible for this specialty, without an internal emergency care specialist,” the situation is expected to continue from January.

“In addition, doctors have become victims of the illegal deregulation of their schedules with six days of work per week without providing time off after working on Sundays and holidays,” assured the same source, stressing that even the payment of additional work for prisoners has not yet been regulated.

Fnam also reported that in the Leiria hospital the situation has become particularly serious: services depend on only two specialist doctors and two general interns, who “do not have the necessary experience to carry out medical actions autonomously with the necessary safety for patients.” .

“On Christmas Eve night, the entire hospital was handed over to one specialist, two general practitioners and two 1st and 2nd year interns. All other emergency specialties were closed: cardiology, gynecology, surgery, pediatrics.

The internal medicine department has been closed since the night of the 24th, but despite this, emergency services have not stopped arriving on their own, and patients in ambulances without contact with CODU. [Centro de Orientação de Doentes Urgentes]increasing the medico-legal risk for doctors and patient safety,” Fnam said.

“In the south, in the Algarve, there are several emergency departments that alternate between hospitals in Faro and Portimão, but are not able to handle simultaneous work. This applies to pediatrics, gynecology-obstetrics, gastroenterology and, more recently, urology,” emphasized the representative composition of doctors.

In the same document, Fnam also said it was providing doctors with a functional disclaimer for the purpose of “abdicating any liability arising from the practice of medical acts” whenever they encounter conditions unsuitable for the performance of their functions and have called the next government for negotiations.