Mayor blasts Minister over Faro Hospital’s Christmas staffing levels

Faro Council’s mayor has launched a blistering Christmas attack on the government’s health provision in the Algarve, blaming the minister of failing to ensure sufficient medical staff, especially in the Gynecology and Obstetrics departments which may have to be shut down, albeit temporarily.

An emailed message was sent from Faro Council to the Minister of Health, Marta Temido, in which Mayor Rogério Bacalhau expressed his concern about the neonatal unit over the Christmas period.

The mayor asked the minister for an “urgent and forceful action” to resolve this issue, at a unit that also provides, “care in the areas of prenatal diagnosis, cervical pathology, senology and oncological gynecology” and deals with 2,400 births per year.

Bacalhau said that this service “can not just fail, let alone during a period in which the inflow of users predictably is high,” and asked for the intervention of the minister to solve the situation, in face of the disturbing information about, “a glaring lack of medical personnel.”

The government is busy dealing with a damaging series of nurses’ strike after talks with the various unions have led nowhere, mainly because Temido says there’s no budget for more money. These strikes and demonstrations, thankfully, are planned for early in the New Year.