Madeira government omitted vital data in new hospital project

The statement comes from a report by the council charged with accompanying financial policies (CAPF, Conselho de Acompanhamento de Políticas Financeiras), and is damning for Madeira’s autonomous government in what concerns the financing of the future Madeira hospital (F-HCM), to which Madeira In & Out had access.

The report analyses the application of the F-HCM to Common Interest Project (PIC), which would enable it to be co-financed by the national budget, but it recommends that no funds should be transferred as the project has no conditions of attaining that status.

According to the local government, the need for a new hospital comes from the progressive inadequacies of the present units, and the growing gap between the response the current units can provide and the increased criteria required for technically appropriate health care.

The granting of the PIC status to the new hospital depends on a favourable decision by the CAPF, while the final decision is to be taken by the whole government, by decision of the Council of Ministers.

Because the CAPF determined this to be a technically complex matter, it decided to hear six different entities: the Agencia para o Desenvolvimento e Coesão – Direcção Geral de Saude (ADC-DGS), Administração Central do Sistema de Saúde (ACSS), the Unidade Tecnica para o Acompanhamento de Projectos, the Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos and the Gabinete de Planeamento, Estratégia, Avaliação e Relações Internacionais. The input of all these entities means that the local government should improve the technical quality of the supporting studies, which are inconclusive as to whether a PIC status should be granted or not.

The ACSS didn’t answer within the deadline, but all the other entities stated that there were insufficient qualitative elements for the co-financing of the project, which means that none of the consulted entities could recommend the granting of PIC status to the new hospital.

Amongst the five reports, the most damaging is the one from the Direcção Geral de Saude, that states that there is no short, medium or long term strategic plan, focuses on insufficiencies at Hospital dos Marmeleiros, specifies the high recourse on overtime payments to doctors because there is a significant number of doctors on a part time basis, as well as several others already passed on to the local government.

The justification presented on the project for its PIC status is, for most CAPF representatives, mostly sustained in qualitative data, with quantitative information being clearly insufficient for the council to conclude, objectively, and after comparing it to other viable alternatives, that it deserves the PIC status.

The Council thus decided that there were no conditions for a favourable technical decision that would allow CAPF to grant the new hospital project PIC status. Let us now see what the local government decision will be, especially as we know that being a quality destination also depends on quality health care and hospital facilities.

PARTILHAR:

Facebook

Google

Twitter

Linkedin

Print

Email