Loures Mayor Confident Pediatric Emergency Rooms Will Reopen on Weekends

Lures Mayor Ricardo Leão said today that he believes the pediatric emergency room at Beatriz Angelo Hospital will reopen on the weekends, saying the health minister gave him that guarantee.

Speaking to reporters after visiting with the Prime Minister the Portela Social Bloc, which is being built with funds from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), Ricardo Leao (PS) stressed that eight days ago, a meeting with Health Minister Manuel Pizarro, where the government committed to “review the situation” with the opening of pediatric emergency rooms over the weekend at Beatriz Angelo Hospital.

“This commitment was made by the Minister of Health along with all the mayors. [servidos pelo hospital de Loures]. Yesterday [segunda-feira] I spoke with the Minister of Health about what happened, what was the decision of the Executive Board of the National Health Service (SNS), (…) and the commitment remains,” he stressed.

The pediatric emergency service at the Beatriz Angelo Hospital has been closed at night and on weekends since the beginning of March due to a lack of specialists visiting the emergency departments of the Santa Maria, Dona Estefania and San Francisco Javier hospitals.

On Monday, the SNS Executive Board unveiled a strategy for the reorganization of the pediatric emergency service in Lisbon and the Tagus Valley region, in which it establishes that in the case of the Beatriz Angelo Hospital, this service will only continue to operate between Monday and Friday (09:00-21:00) , weekend and evening closed.

Mayor Loures said Manuel Pizarro said he was “looking for a very short-term solution” to get pediatric emergency services “replaced and reopened” as quickly as possible at the end of the week.

Asked if he expects the government to back down, Ricardo Leão replied: “There will be.”

“This commitment was made by the Minister of Health and, at least over the weekend, the pediatric emergency at the Beatriz Angelo Hospital is a guarantee for me that this will happen,” he said.

The mayor of Lures said he believed “the word of the minister of health” and stressed that since the commitment made by Manuel Pizarro eight days ago, there was still “an acceptable period” to fulfill it.

This morning in Brussels, the health minister confirmed to reporters that he is working to get the pediatric emergency department in Loures to reopen over the weekend.

“The guarantee I gave is the guarantee I am now repeating: we are going to work to see if it is possible to make the Loures hospital emergency department open during the day, from 9 am to 9 pm, and not just on Mondays. on Friday, but also on weekends,” he added.

Manuel Pizarro added that in any case, “whether at night or on weekends, the children of Loures and their families are protected by other emergencies, namely at the Hospital of Santa Maria and the Hospital of Don Estefania.”

Ricardo Leao also added that the mayors of Loures, Odivelas, Sobral and Mafra, the municipalities served by the Beatriz Angelo Hospital, will hold a meeting today where they will discuss this particular situation and make decisions.

Asked what is a reasonable waiting period for the reopening of emergencies, Ricardo Leao replied: “It is that we, the four mayors of the Chamber, are going to sit down today and decide what is the position that we are going to take together.”

The mayor of Lures also added that during this meeting, the four mayors will also discuss other issues, including “a set of answers that Beatriz Angelo Hospital cannot provide.”

Ricardo Leão expressed concern about “huge waiting lists” or delayed consultations, and stated that in Mafra’s case, the situation is “even worse”, as its residents were left “unresolved” with the closure of emergency services in Torres Vedras and Loures.