In eight days of centralized gynecology-obstetrics urgency at the Hospital Beatriz Ângelo, in Loures, receiving users from its area of influence and from the Vila Franca de Xira Hospital, which includes the city itself, Azambuja, Alenquer, Arruda dos Vinhos and Benavente, Loures-Odivelas Local Health Unit (ULSLOD) considers that the activity remains the same as it registered in the previous two months. This is mentioned in the answers given to DN’s questions about a short-term balance and whether this would already require further measures.
According to ULSLOD, the average number of births recorded “in the first week of operation (started on March 16), the regional Centralized Urgency of Gynecology-Obstetrics of Loures-Odivelas/Tejo Estuary recorded a daily average of 6.1 births and 40.6 admissions, numbers that are in line with the January and February averages”. In other words, around 320 hospitalizations in eight days and 48 births. Which, according to ULS, “was what happened in the first two months of the year, with 18% of admissions to this service being users from the ULS area of influence of the Tagus Estuary (Vila Franca de Xira), a figure that, compared to the first three weeks of March, remains practically unchanged (19.2%)”, they explain to DN.
ULS also guarantees that the beginning of this centralized emergency “was accompanied by the reinforcement of the team from the Gynecology and Obstetrics Service of Hospital Beatriz Ângelo, which has 27 doctors and 18 nurses specialized in Maternal and Obstetric Health”, with ULS in Vila Franca de Xira only contributing to these teams with a single nurse, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, as it only has one doctor specialized in this area. on the staffing table – this was confirmed when the centralized emergency department opened at DN.
Everything indicates that the reinforcement would have been at the expense of hiring doctors, but this is not assumed by the ULS in the response given to the DN. What is known is that the situation continues to concern professionals on the ground. “The feeling of concern remains, because the global situation has not changed. The teams are the same and the area of influence that we have to respond to is larger. Only with time will we be able to realize the impact of all this”, warns the delegate of the Southern Zone Doctors’ Union (SMZS) at Hospital Beatriz Ângelo, João Nunes.
For example, “in the area of anesthesia there is no reinforcement with doctors on duty, we remain the same ones to deliver babies. In the area of gynecology-obstetrics there were also no workers, the teams were formed only with doctors from the hospital, if workers were hired in the meantime it is something new”, he explains further.
Regarding the fact that ULSLOD says that the average number of admissions and births is identical to that of previous weeks or months, the doctor also highlights that “the fluctuation in births, for example, from one week to the next is large, and it is not possible to understand at the end of this time if we are facing a global trend just with what happened in this first week”, João Nunes said.
The truth, he reinforces, is that “we use a rule and system to effectively receive all users in the gynecology-obstetrics area in an emergency situation from an area of residence that is not that of ULS Loures-Odivelas. Of course, when the Vila Franca de Xira emergency room was closed this already happened, but it wasn’t always the case. Now, it is. And human resources didn’t increase and neither did the number of beds. Therefore, the initial feeling of concern remains and only time will show its impact”, although there are questions that may never be answered, such as: “How many pregnant women stopped going to the National Health Service and switched to the private sector?”
In fact, this has been one of the issues that mayors in the Vila Fraca de Xira region have protested against – how many kilometers do pregnant women in Benavente have to travel in an emergency situation, for example? – since the decision was announced to open a centralized emergency room in Loures, closing the one at Vila Franca de Xira Hospital.
The mayors of the Setúbal Peninsula have also been protesting against the creation of emergencies centralized in the Gynecology-Obstetrics area, as on April 15th this same emergency should begin operating at Hospital Garcia de Orta with resources from Hospital do Barreiro, whose emergency department in this area will close.
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