Algarve's ULS is ensuring emergency services are operational

The Algarve Local Health Unit (ULS) has a seasonal summer plan in place that has managed to guarantee the operation of the six emergency services in the Faro district, said on Friday, August 1, the president of the ULS administration.

In a statement, the chairman of the board of directors of the ULS Algarve, Tiago Botelho, explained that the seasonal plan for the summer module provides for a set of technical responses depending on demand, but highlighted that the "most visible" part and its "main line of action" involve "ensuring the functioning of what already exists."

With healthcare professionals also wanting to take summer vacations, the "main measure or need" is "to ensure that what exists continues to function," he noted.

“That, in itself, is indeed a significant effort, which does not necessarily mean, in most circumstances, new things or new services or new professionals working,” he explained.

To achieve this goal, the ULS must "address the need to give people vacations" and ensure that "the allocation of human resources is compensated so that it does not affect the response capacity" of the emergency services operating in Faro, Portimão, Lagos, Albufeira, Loulé and Vila Real de Santo António.

"Maintaining an emergency hospital service in these six cities during the normal season alone is not easy. In the summer, it's even more complex, and therefore, our responsibility is [...] to ensure that these six emergency departments operate" with the necessary medical staffing levels, he said.

Tiago Botelho emphasized that there are emergency services “more differentiated than others” and four of them are “basic level.”

"One of them [the emergency room], in Portimão, is medical-surgical, and the one in Faro is multipurpose. [...] In Faro and Portimão, they are further subdivided into several other care areas—gynecology and obstetrics, pediatrics, and psychiatry. Therefore, all of these areas are open and operational emergency services, and our obligation in terms of the summer plan is to ensure that none of them close," he explained.

When asked if this objective is achieved by hiring professionals, Tiago Botelho responded that it is necessary to “essentially organize better” and “ensure that fair compensation is made in terms of who can take vacations and who cannot”, sometimes alternating “in annual, biannual or triannual periods”.

"And then, yes, there are actually not exactly new people who are recruited, but people who come here to provide services, usually more staggered throughout the year and who now, at this time, come more intensively," he added.

They are professionals from other hospitals and other areas of the country who, at this time of year, have been working longer in the Algarve , he said.

The plan also foresees that, depending on demand, measures may be adopted such as “more proactive management of inpatient services” to speed up discharges that could free up hospital beds or the provision of 20 additional inpatient beds at the Southern Medicine and Rehabilitation Center, in São Braz do Alportel, the administrator added.

“In primary health care, what we did was also ensure that there were appointments for non-registered users, that is, users who do not have a family doctor in the region and, therefore, are passing through,” Tiago Botelho also indicated.

The administrator of the Algarve ULS also highlighted that these consultations are available in health centers "a little throughout the region" and, "additionally," this year they also began to be carried out in Altura, in the municipality of Castro Marim, and in Quarteira, in the municipality of Loulé, two seaside areas that welcome many people in the summer.

The Algarve ULS seasonal plan is valid between June and September and can be extended if necessary.