The League of Portuguese Firefighters today approved the application of fees to hospitals for the retention of ambulance stretchers in emergency rooms, starting on Wednesday if a solution is not presented by the executive board of the National Health Service.
“We took the decision, unanimously and by acclamation, that as of Wednesday the 10th, we will start asking hospitals to reimburse the expenses that firefighters are incurring by immobilizing their ambulances, stretchers and firefighters in hospital emergency rooms,” said António Nunes, president of the League of Portuguese Firefighters (LBP), at the end of the LPB Executive Council meeting held in Gouveia, in the district of Guarda.
The League leader described the decision as being that “for every two hours after the first hour, 50 euros are applied, for the second two-hour block 100 euros, for the third two-hour block 150 euros and then 150 euros for every two hours after that”.
António Nunes assured that if “a credible solution” is not presented at Tuesday’s meeting with the executive board of the National Health Service, the firefighters will start charging from Wednesday “until that solution appears”.
“Firefighters are incurring additional costs that are not covered by any protocol, and we have to ensure that these costs are reimbursed. The firefighters don’t want to make money from the emergency services, the firefighters don’t want to be harmed by the emergency services,” he argued.
He admitted that the decision won’t solve the problem, but argued that it can’t be the firefighters “who subsidize the poor functioning of hospitals in the face of a situation that is getting worse”.
Antunes Nunes pointed out that after an hour “there’s no reason why the stretcher shouldn’t be returned and the ambulance should be sitting in the parking lot waiting for the stretcher”.
If the hospitals don’t want to reimburse the firefighters for the costs, António Nunes warned that there could be tougher measures such as “not taking discharged patients out of hospitals”.
“The hospital will certainly think twice. For example, last week in Coimbra there were around 18 ambulances stopped for more than 20 hours,” he said.
The president of the League acknowledged that “there have always been stretcher hold-ups”, but the problem had already been raised.
“We had already raised this problem. One of the options was to force the hospitals to pay these additional costs that nobody pays us. To try and force the administrations to find a solution,” said António Nunes.
The leader points out that the situation “is very complicated for the humanitarian associations and is “creating three types of problems for the firefighters”.
“It’s a problem of managing staff, managing resources and vehicles and making it harder to help communities. We’re in Gouveia, if the ambulances leave here and there’s no ambulance, other neighboring ambulances have to come, if they’re available,” he said.
António Nunes also stressed that “ambulances are offered by communities to serve people”.
