Algarve hospitals merger 'poorly done' and of no benefit to the region

The head of the Algarve’s State-run group of hospitals has slammed the merger of the Faro, Lagos and Portimão units, saying that the merger of the three hospital managements into one, had been “poorly done and did not benefit the region.”

The president of the Hospital Centre of the Algarve said she was against the way in which the hospitals had been merged in a single hospital management centre and lamented the lack of medical personnel in the region.

At a Parliamentary Health Committee hearing, Ana Paula Gonçalves told MPs that the "integration of Algarve units" into a single hospital "did nothing to improve efficiency."

The manager said that in the case of the Algarve, the merger was done without any sensible study, adding that the geographic dispersion of the units and the enormous size of the resulting merged management, made “management difficult and painful."

Ana Paula Gonçalves indicated also that the merger had, as a consequence, led to, "the exit of some professionals” who did not want to work under the new management system.

As for the doctors who had remained working in the new management system, Gonçalves admitted there were not enough and that there remained 400 unfilled posts.

The Board of Trustees of the University Hospital of Algarve was attending the Committee meeting at the request of the PSD, "regarding the delays in performing examinations for cancer patients" and the "suspension of the scheduled surgeries of the Hospitals of Faro and Portimão," two specific examples of the results of an ill-thought through management merger the repercussions of which are being felt every day across the region.

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