Minister justifies out-of-hours meals at Santa Maria with too many patients in the emergency room

The Minister of Health justified, this Wednesday, delays in the feeding of users in the emergency rooms of Hospital de Santa Maria with the fact that there are “too many patients” who remain “too long” in this service.

CNN released a report on Tuesday with reports of complaints of delays in meals from patients who have been in the temporary hospitalization zone in the emergency room since Saturday, with patients who only ate lunch at 5 pm.

Asked about this situation on the sidelines of the 1st Meeting “Pause for Mental Health: A reflection on Higher Education”, which is taking place in Lisbon, the Minister of Health said he had “a side knowledge of the situation”, which he regretted.

“Has this happened in some cases of users who were in the emergency services and truly we have to do a job in the emergency service of several hospitals in the country, especially in those in Greater Lisbon”, because the fact that people were fed outside of the normal meal time results from “a basic problem”, said Manuel Pizarro.

The minister added that “the problem of food in the emergency room only arises because patients remain too long in the emergency room”, adding that they are taking measures to, upstream, intervene to reduce this length of stay in the emergency room. “That is the structural solution”, he defended.

He also said that it was difficult to ask professionals to deal with the issue of food as a priority for the patients who are there: “If the patients are at risk of dying, because they are in the emergency room, it is evident that this is the priority of the professionals”, which explains that “in one case or another feeding may have been undesirably delayed beyond the normal period”.

Contacted by the Lusa agency, the Centro Hospitalar Universitário Lisboa Norte (CHULN) denied the existence of basic problems with the provision of meals to patients in its services.

“Even so, and to ensure that this right is fully and timely respected, the CHULN will investigate the existence of any occasional constraints, resulting from the affluence and the process of providing care in its Emergency Service, so that these situations do not recur ,” he said in a written response.

Also questioned about the latest Intercampus barometer for Jornal de Negócios and Correio da Manhã, which reveals that two thirds of respondents are against the closing of emergencies, the solution that has been adopted in response to the lack of human resources, the minister said he does not know of any health reform that becomes popular before people see how it works.

“All the changes they make in the health system are perceived by people with the risk of what they feel they are going to lose and with the lack of perception of what they are going to recover in exchange”, he commented, recalling that, when more than a decade ago in the In the north of the country, “a major reorganization” was carried out, which concentrated emergency response in a smaller number of units, the first reactions were also of “fear and misunderstanding”.

In his view, “what really matters to people is what is working at all times, with quality and safety and with predictability in relation to their response”.

Noting that he has “a lot of respect” for public opinion and the opinion of experts, technicians, he added that they are doing the necessary work to “organize a system that is safe and sustainable”.

On whether constraints are foreseen in the Easter week and in the summer in emergency services, the official said that the Government will continue to work together with professionals, with specialists, with the community to generate “an organized, structured response” , with quality and safety for users, in the first place, and for professionals who also need that safety.

“I do not hide or diminish the problems, the difficulties we have, but I must say that I am absolutely sure that the SNS will be, as always, to respond to people’s needs”, concluded the minister.