Paulo Macedo announced that he has authorised the recruitment of more nurses and doctors for the Algarve region, which everyone agrees is critically short of staff.
The Health Minister said in Parliament that 45 nurses as well as a number of physicians and GPs would be hired for Algarve region, many of them 'foreign.'
The Minister did not confirm how many doctors might be recruited but any hirings are unlikely to be permanent ones in time for the main tourist season when the Algarve's population trebles.
Paulo Macedo was responding to Parliamentary Health Committee questions relating to a distinct lack of human resources in health care facilities in the Algarve,a situation recently denounced by the Order of Physicians, the Algarve’s mayors group AMAL, local regional management, health care pressure groups and protesters.
"Once again we open up a significant number of vacancies. Foreign doctors will go to the Algarve with 45 more nurses, and general practice physicians in other specialties," said the minister who again has reacted too late to provide any long-term stability for the region’s heathcare system.
Providing a wave of temporary foreign medical professionals is an expensive solution to a problem of which the Minister has long been aware and has ignored on cost grounds. The Algarve is understaffed according to the government's own staff number minimum requirements.
Macedo's man in charge of the Central Hospitals of the Algarve (CHA), Dr Pedro Nunes has been aware of Lisbon's policy yet has let many doctors in the Algarve move to the private sector due to his imposition of new contracts which gave the medics no option to divide their time bewteen private and public medicine. Vacancies have as a result remained unfilled.
The Order of Medics said yesterday that the region lacked 100 to 200 hospital doctors and a further 100 GPs and it expressed fear about access to health care during the summer season.
The lack of human resources in emergency departments is a problem that has been admitted to by the Regional Health Administration (ARS) and the management of the Central Hospitals of the Algarve (CHA), but the two bodies overseen by the Ministry of Health continue to bicker over who is responsible for ensuring emergency care staffing.
The minister's move today may well turn out to be a political one. Some new staff may trickle through to emergecy care in the Algarve region but a solution still is a long way off.