The president of the Santa Maria Local Health Unit stated this Friday that the delays in the full opening of the new maternity ward are due to recruitment issues and ongoing negotiations, expecting this to happen in November.
“I have to recognize that we are a month late” in relation to the date on which the maternity ward was expected to be “working at 100%”, said Carlos Martins to the Lusa agency, who asked the institution for an update on the situation at the beginning of the month. about the opening of the Luís Mendes da Graça Maternity Hospital.
This balance is made on the day that the weekly Expresso reports that “the largest maternity hospital in the country only has six of its 12 birthing rooms in operation”highlighting that “there is a lack of doctors, a lack of nurses and there are still works that should have been completed, but are not even tendered yet”.
Carlos Martins explained to Lusa that the delays are related to “issues of recruitment and closing negotiations in the medical career and recruitment in the nursing career”, since, at a structural level, the maternity and emergency work is completed.
“We are not calm, we are not satisfied, but we are working in a situation that is not easy for anyone. If it were easy, there wouldn’t be emergency room closures due to a lack of doctors,” he declared.
She said, however, that the prospects are encouraging because there are doctors interested in working in the maternity ward, but who need to leave where they are.
“There are situations that do not depend on us, as is very evident, they depend on the lives of the people who want to come work with us and they depend on the procedures, as determined by law”, but the institution is “making efforts” so that maternity is fully operational. operation “at the beginning of November”.
According to Carlos Martins, the institution has already hired four specialists, still short of the objective of hiring 10 in total.
“We have some guarantee that throughout this month and November we will have the ‘gap’ that we are missing, which is six more new doctors”, he said, adding that the objective is to reach a total of 50 doctors, including specialists and interns, which has been the average of the medical staff in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics.
He also said that, at the beginning of next year, they will try to hire “four or five more doctors”.
He admitted, however, that hiring in this area is not easy, because the market has “a lot of supply”. Furthermore, the institution chose to invite doctors from outside the National Health Service and “in one case or another” specialists who are working abroad and want to return to Portugal.
But he noted that, even with “entries and departures” of doctors, ULS currently has the same number of specialists in this area as it had in 2023 (44).
Regarding the hiring of nurses specializing in maternal and obstetric health, the administrator acknowledged that the procedures “took some time”, but added that, of the 25 vacancies in the competition, 20 were filled (80%).
“The number of specialist nurses we had at the beginning of the year was approximately 13 and increased to 23, an increase of 105%”, he highlighted.
A new competition is still being finalized to hire another 25: “We hope that the market reacts well in the next two, three months and we reach the end of the year with more nursing specialists in this area”.
In addition, there were “three generalist nurses who had career promotions”, becoming specialists.
The institution also increased the number of auxiliary health technicians and administrative assistants for shifts, especially in the block where the emergency service is located.
In terms of other works that were planned in the first stage, Carlos Martins said that the institution has a bidding process to expand the Puerperium unit.
“In terms of planning the first phase of work, we completed what was to be completed and it is working. In terms of the second phase, the procedures are running and the planning in terms of investment is being fulfilled”, he assured.
The maternity ward has been carrying out induction births, vaginal births and cesarean sections since the beginning of September, according to the installed capacity that exists, that is, the two surgical centers, the rooms and the boxes that are operational.
