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Faro and Portimão hospitals to demerge after a troubled three years

barlaventohospitalThe Regional Health Administration of the Algarve is formally to propose to the Health Minister that the Algarve's two main hospitals, merged into a single management unit in 2013, should be split up and again managed independently.

The Hospital Centre of the Algarve management body was set up to run the main Faro and Portimão hospitals but has been fraught with difficulties under the presidency of Dr Pedro Nunes whose three year tenure was scarred with conflict, labour disputes and ill will and he struggled to impose proposed change on an unwilling workforce.

Health Minister, Adalberto Campos Fernandes, is expected to make a decision by the end of the year to end the merged management of the two hospitals.

João Moura Reis, the man currently running the Hospital Centre of the Algarve management team, said that on his recommendation the possibility of separating the two hospitals (Faro and Portimão) will be tabled for the minister's consideration," adding that he and his colleagues already had studied a demerger plan.

According to Reis, the creation of the merged management structure in 2013 by the previous Government "was a mistake" and the methodology used "did not work", which led to "management inoperability" of the two hospitals.

"It was a precipitous form of union, with no basis,” said Reis, adding that the two hospitals have different characteristics and serve different populations.

The proposal already has been discussed with the Health Minister who is expected to waste no time in approving the demerger of Faro and Portimão hospitals and the resumption of the joint management of Lagos and Portimão hospitals, which always worked well.

The Hospital Centre of the Algarve management started operating on July 1st, 2013, following the closing down of the separate management structures for Eastern Algarve and Faro Hospital.

Approved by the Council of Ministers in April 2013, the creation of the unified management structure was justified as a "tool to optimise the management of health facilities and enable a response to the chronic constraints of human resources."

Put simply, this failed with local councils spotting that the merger was only to save money, not to improve services, and feared the closure of certain clinical services through fuinding restrictions.

In February of this year, the Health Ministry announced a study on the reorganisation of the National Health Service in the Algarve with this demerger of Faro and Portimão a key area of research and discussion. Whent this demerger is signed off, the Algarve's health service workers will rejoice, attributing the dark years of Pedro Nunes' management as a just a bad dream.

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