Portimão Hospital? Carneiro signs alleged third death: “Child”

O pS leader announced today that he will call urgently the Minister of Health to Parliament due to the deaths in the Hospital of Portimão, adding that he was aware of another probable death due to lack of response.

“ Two people died because of lack of medical assistance in the emergency room of the Portimão Hospital. From yesterday [Saturday] to today, and because I spoke about it, I was contacted that there may have been another death, in this case, of a child, for lack of response in that hospital in Portimão and in transport to Faro”, indicated José Luís Carneiro.

In statements to journalists, on the margins of a lunch with the militants in Midões, in the municipality of Tábua, district of Coimbra, the leader of the Socialist Party (PS) informed him that “the child will have died in October”.

José Luís Carneiro said that he questioned on Saturday the Prime Minister whether or not the government was following what is happening at Portimão Hospital in the Algarve.

“ It is very important that the Prime Minister explain to the Portuguese, and particularly to the Algarves, what happened and what he is thinking to do to respond to the Algarves that do not find answers in health, in this case, in the urgency of the Hospital de Portimão ", demanded.

For José Luís Carneiro, this subject “should surely have been talked about”, since it is the death of people who, according to the public, “failed due to lack of response in the hospital emergency” of Portimão.

In this sense, he said that the PS will “call urgently the Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, to the Assembly of the Republic to be able to answer” the questions of the Members and, at the same time, to say “what the Government is planning to do to respond to the serious health needs that are being put, in particular, in Portimão”.

On Saturday, in Vila Nova de Gaia, he told journalists that Luís Montenegro “has a duty to clarify the circumstances in which the two deaths occurred” in the Algarve.

“The Prime Minister has a duty to publicly explain what happened so that we had two deaths due to lack of medical care in that hospital in Portimão,” he said.

The socialist leader said he spoke to the mayor of Portimão, who gave him “very worrying” information about the lack of doctors in the emergency room and the waiting times of users for assistance.

According to José Luís Carneiro, “there are several municipalities and thousands of people who turn daily to the hospital in Portimão”, and he considered that “the clarifications are due not only to the families of the victims, but also to the population served by that unit”.

Asked about the absence of explanations from the Minister of Health, the Secretary-General of the PS said “strange the absence of the Government, considering that political responsibility lies primarily with the Prime Minister”.

“ For me, the Health Minister has long been absent from what the Ministry of Health needs are,” said the socialist leader, who closed the Gaia Autarchical Convention at the InovGaia Auditorium on Saturday.