Government intends to move forward with “another wave of PPP” in health

O Government will launch “another wave” of public-private partnerships (PPP) in health, announced today Minister Ana Paula Martins, advancing that it intends to make these processes faster, in the context of state reform.

“ We never hide that we want to launch another wave of PPP ", said the Minister of Health, at the joint hearing of parliamentary committees of Health and Budget, Finance and Public Administration, in the context of the discussion in the specialty of the proposal of the State Budget Government for 2027.

In her response to the Liberal Initiative, Ana Paula Martins stressed that the PPPs have “an extraordinarily complex legislation”, claiming that it can take five to seven years to be able to close the competition and start the work.

In the context of the state reform, “we have a process so that we can be faster to launch the PPPs, which will be in limited numbers and in local health units (ULS) where there will be greater availability of the State and partners to make this agreement,” the governor said, without specifying which ULS in concrete terms.

Ana Paula Martins also advanced to the deputies that the ordinance that will set the fees to pay to so-called tarefeiros doctors is about to be published, after having recently guaranteed that it would be still in October.

“It has to be published very soon, because service contracts are mostly annual” and end at the end of the year, said the Health Minister, considering that hospitals have to know in January what the hourly amount to be paid to the doctors.

The decree-law of June that regulated the hiring regime of these health professionals determines that these values must be established, by ordinance, by the members of the Government of the areas of Finance, Public Administration and Health, providing several modalities, such as by hour of work, by medical task and by emergency scale, among others.

The ULS use medical service providers to address the lack of specialists in their staff, with most of them ensuring stopovers in emergency services.

During the hearing, PCP MP Paula Santos lamented the “thieved numbers” of the government’s proposal, claiming that this had the objective of concealing the lack of investment in the SNS and the transfer of resources to the private, an accusation that Ana Paula Martins rejected.

“ We do not hammer numbers and it is not true that we hide any disinvestment ", said Ana Paula Martins.

The proposal of the Government of the State Budget for 2027 was approved, in general, on Wednesday, in the Assembly of the Republic and the overall final vote is scheduled for November 24, after the discussion process in the specialty.