“We decided that we will move forward with a joint fight so that the closure of the emergency rooms in Barreiro and Vila Franca does not materialize.” This is Paulo Silva, president of the Seixal Chamber, who was one of those who attended the meeting scheduled for the end of this Tuesday afternoon, the 19th, at the Vila Franca de Xira Chamber.
The agenda for this meeting included only one item, the new model of regional (or centralized) emergencies for the Gynecology-Obstetrics area that the Government has already put into operation at the Hospital de Loures, since Monday, the 16th, closing the emergency room in Vila Franca de Xira, and which it wants to take forward in Margem Sul, with the closure of the one in Barreiro to concentrate human resources in the emergency room in Garcia de Orta.
The group of 13 mayors, not fourteen, who participated in the meeting, nine municipalities from the Setúbal Peninsula (Alcochete, Almada, Barreiro, Moita, Montijo, Palmela, Seixal, Sesimbra and Setúbal) and four more from Lisbon (Azambuja, Alenquer, Arruda dos Vinhos and Vila Franca de Xira), as Benavente, from the municipality of Santarém, did not attend, decided that their action to fight against the closure of the two emergency rooms, Barreiro and Vila Franca de Xira, will begin in Parliament, asking for urgent hearings from all parliamentary groups.
As Paulo Silva further explained, “let’s start here, but we are willing to do anything to ensure that our populations are not harmed by the closure of these services… We’ll see later”. Mayor Seixal hopes that deputies will be sensitive to this issue, remembering that what is at stake is the end of proximity care and, probably, “an increase in births in ambulances, since, in our region, a person from Pegões will have to go to have their child at Garcia de Orta, and it is more than 50 kilometers away”.
The mayors began meeting separately with the Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, last week, to show their discontent and try to find solutions together, but, as they told DN, they felt “ignored”. And now they are going to enter into what they call “a joint fighting strategy” to prevent the closures.
It is worth remembering that in the case of the centralized emergency on the South Bank, which was about to be the first to move forward, the minister has already confirmed that it is delayed and that it will only move forward on April 15th. In the case of the emergency at Loures Hospital, progress was made on Monday and, according to the minister, assessments will be carried out almost daily, but nothing is known about how they are progressing. Before the start of this centralization, doctors from Hospital Beatriz Ângelo expressed their concern to DN because they were already working at maximum capacity and still had to serve more users.
The project to centralize gynecology-obstetrics emergencies is one that the Government considers to be reformist for the NHS, which aims to avoid temporary closures, especially in the summer.
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