Doctors union says help in Rossio was hampered by PSP

O The South Zone Doctors Union today condemned “the disproportionate use of force” by the PSP on Sunday in Rossio and considered it “unacceptable that aid to injured people with potential injuries was prevented or delayed”.

In question is the police charge in the early hours of October 25th to end the camp under way in Praça D. Pedro IV (Rossio), in Lisbon, and in Praça D. João I, in Porto, using batonada and dogs.

The union notes that it “received with deep concern” the information of this intervention in Praça D. Pedro IV that they realized that “a considerable number of injured had head traumas with important scalp lacerations, compatible with the impact of a stick”.

“ In two of these cases there would be alarm signs of possible neurological injury, which required differentiated evaluation on site and transportation the hospital unit ", continues the statement.

“According to the same information, there are no means of the INEM [National Institute of Medical Emergency] on site, the Center for Urgent Patient Guidance (CODU) was contacted. It will have said that it is not possible to send means by the PSP not to authorize its passage. The first means will have arrived about 40 minutes later and consisted of motorcycles of the INEM and not ambulances ", it is still read.

The press note states that the rules in force in the PSP on the use of coercive means classify the head as “red area”, where the impacts of bate are considered a coercive medium of high lethal potentiality and only admissible in a situation of self-defense.

“ To confirm themselves, the facts reported constitute an act that is inconsistent with these norms ", points the union.

Condemning the use of “unproportional force against citizens (...) in the peaceful public space exercising the right of assembly and demonstration” and considering that “unacceptable that access to differentiated pre-hospital care should be prevented or delayed to injured persons, some with injuries of potential severity”, SMZS warns that “access to urgent health care cannot under any circumstances be conditioned by public policy operations”.

The union also points out that the demonstration had as its object the right to housing, “an issue that directly affects the National Health Service (SNS)”, referring that the difficulty in getting home at affordable costs in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area “is today one of the main limitations to the fixation of doctors and other health professionals in the region, especially in early careers”.

“ This reality contributes to vacancies for filling and aggravating inequalities in access to health care, penalizing populations and units with greater shortage of professionals. The response to the housing crisis is therefore also a condition for the sustainability of the SNS and for equity in access to health ", adds the statement.

The protests for the right to housing began on October 10 in Praça D. João I, in Porto, and in Lisbon on October 17 in Praça de D. Pedro IV, with tension with the police that does not allow the tents to stay overnight in these squares.

The first police charge took place in Porto on October 15.