The ruling cast was completed yesterday, after Socialist MEP Manuel Pizarro was appointed health minister, replacing Marta Temido, who resigned from the executive in late August claiming he no longer had “conditions to hold office.” stay”. Pizarro, who took office on the 10th, has now elected his two Secretaries of State – Ricardo Mestre (Health) and Margarida Tavares (Health Promotion). For example, the government team of the Ministry was completely renewed (in addition to Minister Marta Temido, the Secretaries of State Lacerda Sales and Fátima Fonseca left, who now took on the three mandates as deputies).
The surprise yesterday, however, was the choice of a third Secretary of State, Miguel Alves, the current mayor of Caminha (District Viana do Castelo), as the prime minister’s deputy.
António Costa always had assistant secretaries of state, but not when the current government was formed. The portfolio holder of the previous director, Tiago Antunes, remained directly dependent on the Prime Minister, but in the current government as Secretary of State for European Affairs. Costa also maintains another Secretary of State, Mário Campolargo (digitization and administrative modernization).
By now assuming that he really needs an assistant secretary of state, the prime minister is implicitly acknowledging deficiencies in political coordination in the government, which have been given their maximum public expression in the “Episode Pedro Nuno Santos” (the Minister of Infrastructure published an order with the solution for the new Lisbon airport, an order that he had to revoke the next day by order of the head of government).
“Betrayal” the Camihenses
The new Deputy Undersecretary of State to the Prime Minister, who has worked directly with António Costa at the MAI (Ministry of the Interior) and the Lisbon Chamber, will serve on the Council of Ministers as a lawyer by training. Mayor of Caminha, who is serving his third (and final) term, also currently heads the PS district federation in Viana do Castelo.
The local PSD commented on Miguel Alves’ appointment, saying that now that he leaves Caminha, he is “betraying” the people of the province. “It is a case of saying that the truth is like olive oil, it always comes out. Although Miguel Alves has always promoted his love for Caminha, the idea that has always circulated in the municipality of Caminha was that the post of mayor would serve as a catapult for other flights. The rumors have just been confirmed,” the PSD’s Viana do Castelo district said in a statement. Also leaving a warning: “The PS is not complaining that the people of Caminhão, who deserve respect, punish those who brag about their word and don’t keep it.”
At the Ministry of Health, the staff currently (or originating from) the Hospital de S. João, in Porto, can be seen taking on a dominant weight. The pastor, Manuel Pizarro, passed by there during the practice during the time he practiced medicine.
On the other hand, the new Secretary of State for Health Promotion, Margarida Tavares, also a doctor, is currently the Coordinator of Hospitalization and Emerging Infectious Diseases Unit of the Infectious Diseases Service of the Centro Hospitalar Universitário São João (CHUSJ).
As an infectious disease specialist, he played an important role in the organization of that Hospital Center in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, an organization that is considered by many to be exemplary. Since 2021, within the framework of the DGS, he has been leading the national strategy to combat sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infections in Portugal. He has also recently been a spokesperson for the DGS on monkeypox (also called monkeypox disease).
CHUSJ’s weight at the top of the public health hierarchy should be strengthened in the coming days with the appointment of Fernando Araújo to the new post of Director General of the SNS. The appointment of Araújo, who is currently the chairman of the board of directors of the CHUSJ, now appears to be waiting for the president of the republic to enact the law creating the position for which he has been appointed. Formally, the doctor has not yet accepted the invitation. In the meantime, he is negotiating the terms with the new Minister of Health. Araújo plans, as reported by Porto Canal, that the guiding structure of the new executive directorate of the SNS will remain in Porto.
In the new team of the Ministry of Health, Hospital de S. João will not have “representation” in the new State Secretary of Health.
Alentejano de Serpa, Ricardo Mestre studied economics and later specialized in hospital administration. From 2012 to 2016 he was director of the Central Administration of the Health System. Before that, from 2008 to 2012, he worked at ARS do Alentejo. Last June he was appointed deputy director of the DGS, a position he is now stepping down.
The new secretaries of state will take office in Belém today at 7.30 pm. Marcelo also promised for today a position on the government diploma that creates the executive leadership of the SNS (the position to be occupied by Fernando Araújo).
Before leaving for Angola, where he attended the inauguration of President João Lourenço yesterday, Marcelo said on his return to Lisbon that he would receive “legal comments” from his advisers on “three, four or five points raised in the presidency of the Republic” . Marcelo was then of the opinion that “the Portuguese should remain demanding”, but of course “always with the expectation that they can improve, especially after a period when the SNS had such a strong clash as the pandemic, he reacted very well, but to half got sick”.
Yesterday, the new health minister acknowledged that the SNS has “difficulties and problems”. But “we must also remember that it has power and evidence”. Pizarro defended “modernization” as opposed to “conservative attitude”.
Source: DN
