The president of the republic ruled this Sunday that the diploma he received from the National Health Service (SNS) is “on the right track” by creating an institution responsible for management independent of political decisions.
The diploma creating the statute of the SNS arrived at the Palácio de Belém on Saturday evening, when the head of state was “still traveling from Brazil to Portugal”, but Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has already done “a first reading”.
“The diploma is long and complicated, but it seems to me that it is on the right track,” he revealed, talking to journalists on the sidelines of a visit to the Lisbon Book Fair.
“My first reading shows the government’s efforts to approach the president’s stance of separating what is from National Health Service management policy,” he said.
For the President of the Republic, the management of the SNS must be separated from political power in order to “maintain the independence, exemption and autonomy of the SNS”, which “should not be dependent on contingencies of the government or policies enacted in the changes over time”.
According to his initial analysis of the diploma, “an attempt has been made to create a public and autonomous institution”: “Being autonomous, it guarantees stability, durability and separation from the political sphere”.
The diploma will now be analyzed by the Presidency services “in the next two or three days”.
“I certainly hope to have a decision before the end of the week,” he announced on the sidelines of a visit to the Lisbon Book Fair.
Source: DN
