“Many mothers are afraid of having children in the Algarve”, says Cristóvão Norte

In light of recent news regarding the possible closure of the Pediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care Service at the Algarve University Hospital Center (CHUA) as of September, many people are feeling a strong sense “natural dismay and social alarm”, says the Algarve MP.

The Social Democratic political party member revealed in a statement that according to the information provided, by the 12 paediatric doctors heading the hospital’s board, it is likely that only three will be in service from next week onwards, a circumstance that makes the service unfeasible.

Cristovão Norte recalls that in July, in a letter sent to the clinical management team of the Algarve Hospital and University Centre (CHUA), there were complaints from the doctors saying that the Paediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care Service was experiencing “a dramatic situation” and that doctors were working “in a state of exhaustion, transgressing safety limits.” In the letter, the clinicians stressed that the lack of human resources at the Faro Hospital as well had recently worsened with the absence of five paediatricians, two because of illness and three due to pregnancy or maternity leave.

The PSD deputy says that “the bleeding persists and does not stop, the government does nothing and the seriousness of the events does not move or encourage them to act. What is happening is causing great social alarm, it puts mothers and babies in great danger, the scarcity of human resources cannot even be saved by the extraordinary work of a service that with excellent practices and hard-working clinicians. ”

Norte calls for “adapting the service, especially considering fact that maternity hospitals in the Algarve face some of the relatively highest birth rates in the country”.

The MP says that not hiring doctors, nor being able to better their work conditions, is a “clamorous failure that must be promptly corrected by the Government”.