The Prime Minister admitted this Wednesday that there was a guideline, which he assumed as his own, for greater efficiency in health, but he refused that these were cuts, reiterating his confidence in the Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins.
Upon leaving the visit to a school in Lisbon, Luís Montenegro was asked about the news from the newspaper “Público” according to which the Executive Directorate of the SNS gave instructions to hospitals to cut spending, even if this means slowing down consultations and surgeries. “The word ‘cut’ is not correct, there is no guidance in terms of cutting anything”, he began by saying.
Montenegro then added that there is “a very demanding orientation”, which he assumed as his own, towards greater efficiency and “optimization of resources”.
“We don’t want to cut nothing. It implies managing better, it involves fighting against waste, it involves making better choices when purchasing goods and services, so that we can have the resources we need, so that we can have a remunerative policy, in terms of career development, that is adequate to attract and retain more health professionals in the system”, he stated.
Asked about the resignation of the Minister of Health, made by PS leaderMontenegro repeated that all ministers in the Government have his trust. “If I didn’t have the conditions, I wouldn’t be in the Government”, he replied.
When asked if he would not ask for Ana Paula Martins’ resignation if he were currently in the opposition, he replied that during that period he did “what he understood should be done” and he has no regrets. “Now I am in the Government, I fulfill the task of governing and the oppositions fulfill the task of monitoring and scrutinizing the Government’s actions”, he said.
Montenegro stressed that it was not because health budgets grew year after year that “results corresponding to that investment” were achieved.
Faced with journalists’ insistence that these savings might not imply cuts in the services provided, he repeated: “’Cuts’ is a word we don’t use.”
“We want to further accelerate the recovery of waiting lists, whether for consultations or surgeries. We want, in fact, to make the system more efficient”, he said, adding that this is done with “changes from the point of view of better management, better efficiency of services”.
The Prime Minister did not want to anticipate what the President of the Republic might say about health – after Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa promised to speak about the sector after the local councils. “My conversations with the President of the Republic are conversations with reserve and modesty. Naturally, what I can say is that from this point of view everything is normal”, he stated.
Marcelo has been walking since summer promising to talk about health, but has been to postpone. Ana Paula Martins’ assessment should take place this Thursday at the end of the day, at the end of a public session promoted by the Foundation for Health on the 50th anniversary of the Peripheral Medical Service (SMP).
The post Montenegro reiterates confidence in the Minister of Health: “If I didn’t have the conditions, I wouldn’t be in the Government” appeared first on Veritas News.
