APAH calls for appropriate and competent hospital managers

A Portuguese Association of Hospital Administrators (APAH) today warned of the need for the boards of directors of the ULS to be composed of people suitable, competent and with evidence given, following the cases of the Algarve and Aveiro.

“ I see these situations with great concern, both the situation in the Algarve and the situation in Aveiro. Unfortunately, it is impossible not to associate these situations with the criteria that the Government uses to make appointments” for hospital management positions, the president of the APAH told Lusa on the day that the General Secretary of the PS, José Luís Carneiro, said he had news that there was a fourth death at the Hospital de Portimão and that the Health Minister fired the president of the Local Health Unit (ULS) of Aveiro, Ricardo Matos, arrested for suspected corruption.

Xavier Barreto pointed out that the APAH has “insistently warned of the need to appoint people with experience, competence, training, along the way”, stressing that “when this does not happen”, the institutions are exposed to “a greater risk” and said that both in the ULS of the Algarve and in the ULS of Aveiro “the party links of the people who have been named are known” and “the criteria that will eventually have been partisans are also known”.

“ In one of the cases, allegedly, there will even have been an tampering of the selection method, through the knowledge of the questions of CRESAP [Committee on Recruitment and Selection for Public Administration] which also concerns us, because it calls into question the method of selecting leaders in the SNS”, he stressed.

The president of the APAH also questioned the sequence of decisions of the Ministry of Health that ended with the announcement of the Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, on Monday evening, of the resignation of the president of the Board of Directors of the ULS of the Algarve, Tiago Martins da Silva, following the opening of investigations on the death of two elderly and one child of two years, for alleged lack of assistance at the Hospital de Portimão.

“ It is difficult to understand that in May the situation was known to the Ministry of Health, that the Board of Directors had been renamed again in September or October and that it was then necessary to arrive at such a situation to conclude that it was not competent ", lamented.

Xavier Barreto added that there are no conclusions on the investigation of deaths at the Hospital de Portimão, so it is not possible to establish a relationship between these deaths and a possible responsibility of the board of directors.

“ We cannot say that it is because of the guilt they will have in these deaths,” he said, adding that “what the Ministry of Health can argue is that it dismissed the Algarve Board of Directors because, in fact, there were suspicions that it was not competent to do its work, given the accusations that existed. And these accusations have existed since May.”.

Asked about possible political responsibilities, Xavier Barreto said he does not intend to “ask for the resignation of anyone, nor political responsibilities”.

“I won’t ask for anything. The only thing I think we could take advantage of, and it would be timely and very useful, is to discuss once and for all the criteria we use to appoint people and ensure once and for all that we appoint to the board of hospitals people who are absolutely suitable, who are competent, who have given proof”, he insisted.

For the Chairperson of the APAH, as long as there is no such guarantee, the SNS will remain exposed to the risk of similar situations. “We have insistently warned this issue, unfortunately in vain, and the result is this,” he concluded.