The Minister of Health announced today that she has already received the request for a meeting from the recently created Association of Doctors Providers of Service and assured that the meeting will be scheduled “as soon as possible”.
“Regarding doctors who work on a service provision basis, who are building or have already built an association, they have already asked us for a meeting and we are looking at the Ministry of Health’s agendas for the date for this meeting to take place as soon as possible”, Ana Paula Martins told journalists on the sidelines of the National Health Convention, which took place in Lisbon.
At issue in this meeting will be the regulation of medical work in the provision of services approved by the Government at the end of October, which aims to regulate the amounts paid to these health professionals and which provides for a regime of incompatibilities.
With this new regulation, the Government intends to minimize the differences paid between doctors who have a contract with the SNS and doctors who work as service providers, the majority of whom are hired on a temporary basis by hospitals to provide emergencies.
According to Expresso, doctors providing services in public units formed the Association of Doctors Providers of Services on Tuesday following this new regulation.
The movement of medical service providers said in a statement on Thursday that it had requested the Ministry of Health for a meeting to evaluate the decree-law, to discuss the situation, in an attempt to understand “the measures it intends to implement and give its vision of the field, on whether or not they are applicable”.
In the statement, the movement refused, for now, the possibility of a general stoppage of emergency services, claiming that it first wants to know the Government’s diploma.
In her intervention at the CNS, the minister stated that “the defense of health and the truths about how to better manage it are not exclusive to any party, any professional group or any ‘lobby’ of interests”.
“The Ministry of Health will dialogue, like all those who do good, we are open to dialogue, we will never stop being, but we will also never do so due to media pressure or any group, or the pressure of any group, more or less organized, or at the whim of those who live by words and have no responsibility for others”, he assured.
Asked if she was referring to doctors providing services, the minister said no, clarifying that she was referring to “any type of pressure that may exist” and, she said, “there are many, always”.
“We make politics with planning and not politics on impulse”, he stressed.
In her speech, the government official also highlighted that the Government will not deviate “even one millimeter from the path” it is following.
“Now I’m going to speak in the first person. The difficulties that await me are greater than those I’ve experienced so far, because everyone wants change, but when you dare to change, you face great storms, winds that we anticipated, that we already expected, but if we want to reach our destination, we’re going to have to make this journey, there’s no other way”, he declared.
Ana Paula Martins stressed that “the Government will not stop dialoguing, being transparent, converging on everything that is fundamental to guarantee a better response and security and confidence to people about the health system”, always assuming responsibility for the conduct of policies.
“Be assured that we will make the necessary changes, because the policies, regardless of who holds the portfolio, in an elected government are to be maintained”, he concluded.