Thirty-three emergency services across the country will be operating with limitations next week, with a “real improvement” in the specialties with constraints, the Executive Directorate of the National Health Service (DE-SNS) said today.
According to the new reorganization plan for the SNS emergency services network, for the period between 10 and 17 December, 50 units will be fully operational (60%), of the 83 points across the country, and in the rest there will be “a real improvement in specialties with constraints and days with limitations”.
In the week between December 3 and 9, 44 emergency services were fully operational (53%), and the other 39 had constraints in some specialties, such as Via Verde AVC.
According to the new plan, “there is a clear trend of improvement in the response, which is not unrelated to the effects of the recent agreements with the doctors and the impact they are having on the organization of shifts”.
The plan indicates that the specialties with the most constraints in the emergency room are general surgery, pediatrics, orthopedics and gynecology and obstetrics, but there are four hospitals that have limitations in the Via Verde AVC emergency room on some days, namely Viana do Castelo, Guarda, Santarém and Garcia de Orta, in Almada.
In the Northern Region, which has 29 emergency rooms, 11 emergency rooms in some specialties will be affected.
In the Center, seven of the 17 points will be limited and in the Lisbon and Tagus Valley Region 13 of the 19 emergency rooms will be operating with some specialties conditioned.
The Alentejo region has all 12 existing emergency rooms without constraints and in the Algarve three of the six emergency rooms will be conditioned.
In the document, the Executive Directorate of the National Health Service recalls that the pressure of respiratory infections, “due to its seasonality and the lower temperatures that are occurring, brings new challenges in terms of acute illness”.
However, the organization says that “the availability, commitment and effort of the professionals and the organizational capacity of the health services” has resulted in a “more consistent and robust” response than in previous years.
