This Wednesday, the Minister of Health refused to answer several questions about the case of the twins treated in Santa Maria with the most common drug in the world, emphasizing that he did not want to interfere with ongoing investigations.
“There are investigations underway, an inspection process by IGAS [Inspeção Geral das Atividades em Saúde] and another opened by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which requires that my answers take into account the need that my words are not interpreted as conditioning the inspection process,” said Manuel Pizarro.
The minister responded to the deputies of the Parliamentary Health Committee, where he is being heard at the request of the PS and at the request of the IL, about the “alleged favoritism of two twin babies, suffering from spinal muscular atrophy, in accessing treatment with the medicine Zolgensma”.
Manuel Pizarro stressed the need for institutions to produce their work “with all independence and rigor and as quickly as possible” and emphasized that he had no doubt that the treatment was “decided on clinical grounds” and that the same treatment was applied to both diseases. twin rules of the remaining children who received the same treatment.
The deputies questioned Pizarro about the outcome of the audit of the Santa Maria Hospital (where the babies were treated), which concluded that the scheduling of an initial consultation by the Ministry of Health was the only exception to compliance with the rules.
According to the internal audit report requested by the Board of Directors of the Centro Hospitalar Universitário Lisboa Norte (CHULN), internal controls for admission, treatment and monitoring of treatments for children with spinal muscular atrophy between 2019 and 2023 were respected, with the exception of “referral of two patients for the first neuropediatric consultation”.
Despite being questioned several times by deputies, Manuel Pizarro refused to comment further on this case, pointing to the investigations that are still ongoing and the need to avoid pressure on the institutions responsible for the investigations that are still ongoing to walk.
Regarding the cost of the drug given to children (Zolgensma), he only mentioned that the financing contract was approved on October 13, 2021 and that the rules “will be applied to all cases in which drugs were accepted, including cases within the scope of the Early Access program approved in May 2020”.
Pizarro also pointed to growth in government spending on medicines, indicating that data from the end of October suggests hospital spending has increased by about 12% this year. According to him, government expenditure on medicines amounts to 3.8 billion euros per year and growth in 2023 could only be limited in outpatient clinics (it increased by between 2% and 3%).
Regarding the deadlines for approval of Zolgensma by Infarmed, he replied: “apparently these are the normal deadlines, but I believe that the president of Infarmed is scheduled” to come to parliament.
“But I can guarantee you that you often work on Saturdays and Sundays [no Ministério da Saúde] and there is nothing strange. In fact, you will find many shipments made by me on Saturdays and Sundays,” he added.
The case of the twins with spinal muscular atrophy treated at Santa Maria Hospital is being investigated by IGAS and the Member of Parliament.
Minister refuses to link union negotiations to refusing overtime
Still in the Parliamentary Health Committee, Manuel Pizarro refuted the idea that doctors who refuse to work beyond the legally required 150 hours of overtime would undertake a “kind of strike” in emergency rooms, stressing that this “would be very serious”.
“I don’t do the medical profession an injustice by thinking that doctors would be able to do that. It’s a completely different thing that doctors can exercise their individual right not to work overtime when the law requires them to do so.” said Manuel Pizarro in response to deputy Pedro Frazão do Chega, the party that requested a hearing of the minister in the Health Committee.
Addressing Pedro Frazão, the minister said: “I hope the deputy does not insinuate that emergency room doctors will go on strike, because that would be very serious.”
Later, in response to PSD deputy Rui Cristina, Manuel Pizarro emphasized that he refuses to “make any connection” between union negotiations and each doctor’s individual decision whether or not to work more than 150 hours of overtime per year.
“This association remains with you and not with me, I will never do that. I believe that doctors are people with great dedication and a high ethical profile, who do not identify with the accusations that the honorable Members want to make about the abuse of their right to health care.” hinder the functioning of the services,” he stressed.
Asked how he plans to solve the problem in the emergency services, due to a lack of doctors who can provide shifts, the minister replied that “the reform of the emergency services will not take place everywhere and at one pace at the same time.”
He stressed that the difficulties exist because the emergencies “rely, as always, on a very large number of overtimes,” which requires a “profound reorganization of the emergencies.”
“Our estimate is that emergency medical working hours in Portugal represent approximately 18 million working hours per year, a large part of which are overtime and service hours,” he explained.
The minister noted that Portugal has more than twice the demand for emergency services than developed countries.
According to the minister, the month of December is a period of “heightened pressure” in emergency situations, but he assured that the National Health Service network “has provided a very significant response, which guarantees the safety of the population”.
But according to the government official, “the biggest problem with the SNS” is the number of users without a family care team.
The Minister pointed out that the departure of professionals from the SNS, especially from primary healthcare, is in the vast majority of cases due to reaching retirement age: “We will still have problems until the end of 2024, but the conditions will gradually improve” .
On emergencies, he said there is “a vicious circle” regarding staff, which is always relatively scarce in these services, despite there being 30,000 more professionals in the NHS today than in 2015.
He also stated that there are over 4,600 specialist doctors, over 12,200 nurses, over 2,200 senior diagnostic and therapy technicians, over 2,000 technical assistants and over 5,200 health support technicians.
During the hearing on “where the negotiations with doctors are at and what the government’s true negotiating intentions are regarding OE2024,” Manuel Pizarro said, at Chega’s request, that the government is “relatively satisfied” with the agreement reached with the independent Doctors’ Union, saying it was “in line with what was required”.
“The conditions have been created so that from now on we can achieve our objectives, which are, after all, the objectives of the Portuguese,” emphasizes Manuel Pizarro.
Source: DN
