The General Inspectorate of Medical Activities (IGAS) announced this Monday that it has started an audit process in the case of twins who live in Brazil and received four million euros for treatment at the Santa Maria Hospital in Lisbon.
“We would like to inform you that IGAS has opened a review process for the provision of medical care to the two children to check whether all standards applicable to this particular case were met,” the Inspectorate General of Medical Activities said in a written response to the request. Lusa Agency.
Also this Monday, Inspector General António Carapeto meets with the board of directors of the Centro Hospitalar Universitário Lisboa Norte, which includes the Santa Maria and Pulido Valente hospitals, “so that this body can inform you of the internal measures already taken and report on the actions of the IGAS inspectorate.”
The case in point is a TVI report aired on Friday that two Portuguese-Brazilian twins came to Portugal in 2019 to receive the drug Zolgensma – one of the most expensive in the world – for spinal muscular atrophy, a total of four million. Euro.
According to TVI, there are suspicions that this was due to the influence of the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who has already denied any interference in the matter.
“When the Portuguese-Brazilian twins arrived at the Santa Maria Hospital for treatment of spinal muscular atrophy at a cost of four million euros, the neuropediatricians objected and in November 2019 sent a letter to the then president of the board of directors, Daniel Ferro, explaining his reasons – lack of money and the fact that the children are already undergoing treatment in Brazil,” TVI reports.
He adds that the document disappeared during these four years, but after the report it reappeared.
In a message sent to the editor on Sunday, the board of directors of the Centro Hospitalar Universitário Lisboa Norte confirms receipt of the letter from CHULN neuropediatricians and that “the case will continue to be processed internally.”
On Sunday, the President of the Republic denied that he had petitioned the Santa Maria Hospital or any other organization to allow them to receive treatment on the National Health Service.
“Yesterday I [sábado] He said he didn’t do it. Not. I didn’t talk to the Prime Minister, I didn’t talk to the Minister [da Saúde]“I have not spoken to the secretary of state, the CEO, the president of the hospital, the board of directors, or the doctors,” Marcelo Rebelo de Souza told reporters.
According to the head of state, what is at stake is knowing “whether he intervened or not, that is, whether he asked for an undertaking, asked for a wedge, so that some decision favorable to the claim of two sick twin children would occur.”
“Looking at the report, no one seems to say that I spoke to this person. Nobody. It is said, it seems, it seems so, it seems that it seems there was a family [do Presidente] who devoted himself to this out of friendship. But no one in relation to the President. And there is only one president. The president’s family was not elected, they are not the president,” emphasized Marcelo Rebelo de Souza.
According to him, the president of the republic cannot be subject to “suspicion that he interferes with decisions in the administrative chain, orders, recommends, requests, drives a wedge into anyone, and especially anything that may be closer to friends of acquaintances.” .