The health user commissions of the municipality of Loures will promote a protest on Thursday at 7 pm outside the Beatriz Ângelo Hospital against the closure of the pediatric emergency room and demand that the Government adopt measures to revert the situation.
On Tuesday, the Minister of Health, Manuel Pizarro, assumed that the pediatric emergency room at the Loures hospital will close at night from this Wednesday, since “there are no professionals available”.
According to a note from the unit’s administration, released after the minister’s statements, the service will only operate from Monday to Friday, between 9 am and 9 pm, a situation that will be “transitory”.
“It was with astonishment that the health user committees of the municipality of Loures were confronted with the closure of the pediatric emergencies at Hospital Beatriz Ângelo, which we clearly reject, demanding the Government to take all the necessary measures to reverse this situation”, they say, in a statement.
Users consider that the problems in the hospital’s emergency rooms “reveal the unacceptable lack of response from the Government”, which, they say, has worsened with the transition of the unit to the public sphere and the consequent “displacement of professionals, without the administration being able to have autonomy and the necessary means to stop it”.
“The situation in health centres, also serious and very insufficient in the response it gives to users, aggravates the pressure on hospital services which are already very depleted”, they add.
The Câmara de Loures approved this Wednesday morning a motion against the night closure of the pediatric emergency room at the county hospital, assuring the mayor, socialist Ricardo Leão, that he will not allow this to be a definitive closure.
Meanwhile, the team leaders of the general emergency service at the Loures hospital have resigned due to the lack of conditions, which they say jeopardize the safety of patients and professionals.
According to the Minister of Health, next week the plan for the regular functioning of the pediatric emergencies of the entire metropolitan area of Lisbon will be known, with the official having advised the population that resorts to the pediatric emergency of Beatriz Ângelo to use the services that remain open, such as Hospital de Santa Maria, Hospital Dona Estefânia or Hospital de São Francisco Xavier, all in the municipality of Lisbon.