The Ministry of Health clarified this Sunday that INEM could have launched a public tender for the air transport service for patients based on a 2023 Council of Ministers resolution, avoiding prolonging the award direct.
In a clarification sent to Lusa on the day that the direct adjustment of this service carried out by the National Institute of Medical Emergency (INEM) ends, the Ministry of Health says it does not understand why INEM allowed this to end deadline without having launched an international public tender, an act permitted by the Council of Ministers resolution of October last year.
“From April 2nd until today, INEM has not launched any international public tender for the acquisition of the services in question. We do not understand the reasons”, he says.
It also says that the Government questioned the INEM Board of Directors several times about the emergency transport service in helicopters, knowing that the direct agreement in force ended today, June 30th, but the institute “never presented a solution” under the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of October 2023, which authorizes the expenditure related to the launch of a new public tender for the period 2024-2028.
In this resolution, INEM is authorized to “incur the expenditure on the acquisition of provision, rental, maintenance and management services airworthiness and operation of air resources” during the period from 2024 to 2028, up to a global amount of 60 thousand euros (plus VAT at the current rate), corresponding to 12 thousand euros/year.
“This RCM [Resolução do Conselho de Ministros] allows launching a new competition, for this reason, INEM does not need any authorization from the government to launch a competition”, insists the Ministry of Health.
Jornal de Notícias reported on Saturday that INEM was going to extend the direct agreement with the company Avincis, writing that “the institute wanted to launch a competition in April, but authorization from the Government did not arrive”
Last April, INEM announced that it would launch a new public tender for the service of medical emergency helicopters, after the tender launched in January had received two proposals with values higher than the base price.
In the clarification made today, the Ministry of Health says that since the Government took office it has had several meetings with INEM about the needs of this institute, adding that it approved “the increase in remuneration for firefighters in service that of the Medical Emergency and the budgetary change necessary to cover this expense, with a budgetary impact of 6.6 million euros per year”.
As an example of other conditions given to INEM, it clarifies that the hiring of 200 Pre-Hospital Emergency Technicians (TEPH) was also approved, about which the Ministry of Health says no have still had no information from the institute.
This measure – he adds – has a budgetary impact of 2.8 million euros for the second half of 2024.
It also adds that the exceptional payment of additional remuneration to these technicians up to 80% of the base remuneration was also approved, from January 1 to August 31, 2024, with a monthly impact of 80 thousand euros.
The Ministry of Health announced at the beginning of the month the carrying out of an administrative and financial audit of INEM and, in the last hearing in parliament, the minister explained that she intends to “exactly understand” several processes , namely the hiring of helicopters and ambulances and direct adjustments at the institute.
Also at the beginning of the month, the president of INEM, Luís Meira, heard at the parliamentary health committee, said that he is not “attached to his place” and that, if the Minister of Health decided to dismiss him, would leave the functions “without any problem”.
At the hearing at the Health committee on June 5, minister Ana Paula Martins announced that she was studying changes in the leadership of INEM, considering it essential to refound this body.
