Opposition to the government, namely PSD and Chega, has intensified in the past week. The Social Democrats are pressing for the problems of the National Health Service and André Ventura’s party is trying to explore the investigations involving the former Ministry of Defense and requesting a positive (mandatory) debate to João Gomes Cravinho, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, to be heard in Parliament.
The PSD leader has been very vocal about health issues, saying on Tuesday that if service providers didn’t go to health departments, “there would be no response capacity”, after accusing the prime minister of “ideological stubbornness”.
“If it wasn’t for today [médicos] service providers coming to healthcare facilities, there was no response capacity. This is the greatest proof of what a structural change is, which Dr. António Costa and the people passed by the Ministry of Health take a long time to be hired and executed and this has resulted in an increase in waiting lists,” Luís Montenegro said after meeting with the board of directors of the Castelo Local Health Unit Branco (ULSCB).
The Social Democratic leader once again defended the complementarity between the National Health Service (SNS) and the supply and installed capacity in the social and private sectors as the only way to solve the sector’s problems, “without any form of ideological coercion “.
Luís Montenegro also expressed concern about the possible closure of the maternity ward of Hospital Amato Lusitano (HAL). “We have had the opportunity to realize that there is very little information and here again there is no dialogue with the guardian yet, in the sense of assessing whether or not there will be changes,” he stressed.
“I believe that we can’t just have public services and be based only on a philosophy of the relationship between population density and a ratio in relation to the services provided. It’s on the backs of the population, mayors and hospital leaders who have no information,” he said. stressed out.
In October, Health Minister Manuel Pizarro stated that the government will not close obstetric services or birth blocks in SNS hospitals until the end of this year and that decisions on this will not be taken until early 2023.
The Social Democratic president also recalled the pandemic period that was lived and still lives in the country, which affected and still affects health services. In this sense, he defended the implementation of a recovery plan “quick, efficient and even robust, which can make up for lost time and also prevent the accumulation of more waiting lists in the future”.
Focus on Defense
Meanwhile, Chega requested a final schedule of an emergency debate on investigations involving the Ministry of Defense and wants João Gomes Cravinho, former defense minister and current head of Portuguese diplomacy, to explain to parliament.
“The explanations that could have been given yesterday were not, and unfortunately Chega has no other way, nor has it any other solution, than to demand an emergency debate next week on suspicions of defense corruption,” the president said. from Chega, indicating that the concrete date is still unknown.
On the same day, the current Foreign Minister, João Gomes Cravinho, who held the custody of Defense, was available to go to parliament to clarify his actions in the context of investigations into the operation “Perfect Storm”.
Last week, the judicial police, in coordination with the Public Prosecutor’s Office, launched the “Perfect Storm” operation, which resulted in five arrests, including three senior Defense officials and two businessmen, out of a total of 19 defendants, in relation to a period in which João Gomes Cravinho oversaw that ministry.
A source linked to the investigation confirmed to Lusa last Tuesday that former Director General of National Defense Resources Alberto Coelho, Director of Infrastructure and Heritage Services Francisco Marques, and former Director of Financial Management at the Department of National Defense Paulo Branco are the three senior defense personnel detained by authorities.
André Ventura stated that parliament has “a very full agenda until the 22nd”, but defended that “this is a point that should not be left open”. “There are serious suspicions of corruption in the Defense Ministry,” he said.
DN with Portuguese
Source: DN
