“intentional blackout”,”politically hammered figures”,”artificially erased”,”surgically cleared”,”the electoral scenario [as eleições regionais deste ano] caused elements to be removed”.
From 2015 to 2021 waiting lists grew by over 85% – from a total of over 63,000 to 118,000 – but in one year, from 2021 to 2022, they had “a 45% blackout”: from 118 412 to 65 109.
“The documents sent by the Regional Secretary of Health [da Madeira]”Showing the unthinkable by order of the judge: an abrupt reduction of waiting lists at Health in the Region” in the order of magnitude of 45%, “in just one year’s time”.I would say the numbers were politically hammered, occasionally surgically erased, as well as many clinical omissionsÉlvio Sousa, deputy of the JPP (Juntos Pelo Povo), says.
The Administrative and Fiscal Court of Funchal, in a March 29 decision, required the government of Miguel Albuquerque’s Regional Health Secretariat to make public the “lists of those registered for surgery, by specialty and type of surgery, for additional diagnostic methods and therapeutic and for specialist consultation, by specialty” until December 31, 2022.
This has been the case for two years. Access “to the waiting lists only with judicial appeal” and in other years “almost the same way”, the deputy complains. This time, however, the surprise was undeniable. “How is a 45% reduction possible?” asks Élvio Sousa.
The answer you find? “They were artificially erased, it was an intentional blackout”.
The first question? “How is it possible that consultations such as nephrology, gynaecology, obstetrics, pain medicine, gastroenterology, among others, remain in the “shadow” because they have no “criteria” to integrate the waiting lists? In 2018, for example, there were 44 specialties on the waiting list for consultations; in 2021 34 specialisms and in the data sent now, referring to 2022, only 15 specialisms are integrated!”.
For example, the official explanation of the 2020 documents points to a reason: “According to the oral guidance of the clinical management, in June 2019, when checking the waiting lists, consultation requests for the specialties Pathological Anatomy, Anaesthesiology, General Medicine and Family Medicine, Hyperbaric Medicine, Intensive Care Medicine and Clinical Pathology, given their characteristics, they have no criteria to have a waiting list, so they are not included”.
And here comes the second question from the deputy sheriff? “Criteria? But what criteria?”
“Year after year, the decrease in the number of consultations of the analyzed specialism is visibles”, concludes Élvio Sousa. Compared to what has happened since 2015, a slight increase can be seen until 2018. From then on, the number of specialties on the waiting lists drops sharply: from 44 to 15. “What are these criteria that eliminated 19 specialties?asks.
Question almost entirely for the “exams” (the complementary means of diagnosis and therapy) which went from 53,967 in 2021 to 16,158 last year.
“In a cunning way, the information on the exams does not follow the methodology of previous years (by specialty + imaging exams), does not allow parallelism with previous years and reflects a sharp decrease in exam waiting lists (…) In previous years, the Minister of Health did not send the list of imaging tests and tests by specialty, which, as confirmed in 2021, were part of the additional resources for diagnosis and therapy. The image is gone!” says Elvio Sousa.
Solution? “We will urgently proceed with a new order.” And there is, he guarantees, one thing for sure about these data: “They show the decrease in the strictness of the treatment of information, namely in the criteria for having a waiting list”
The regional health secretariat, contacted by DN, clarifies that there are nine reasons that explain this sharp drop in waiting lists: “establishment of a specialized production support unit in the health service”; the “creation of specific clinical programs for recovery from waiting lists with strong investment by the regional government”; The”clarification of concepts/references to health practices”; The”update of referral criteria for waiting lists”; The”update of the database of users registered in the regional health system – take advantage of the user file updates made after the COVID-19 vaccination process. This update enabled the intersection of information between the RNU (Single National Register) and the Regional Health System”; The”update of the IT system – clarifying the concepts and criteria for entry into the list”;O”intersection of privately performed health acts with the regional health service – allowing many people who were on waiting lists because they had already performed their health law to be removed in the existing conventional health system”; and the “loss of clinical criteria to remain on the waiting list”.
Source: DN
