Executive management of the SNS wants to expand the model of referenced pediatric emergencies

The executive management of the SNS wants to increase the number of pediatric emergencies referred. The intention is to apply the operating scheme already in force in Amadora-Sintra to more hospitals, which at night only accepts children referred by INEM or the SNS24 line.

The goal is accept only serious cases to avoid peaks in attendance with minor situations that could be resolved the next day in health centers.

The executive management says that the experience has gone well in Amadora-Sintra and during the month of April this hospital maintains this operating scheme.

The director of the pediatrics service at D. Estefânia hospital, Luís Varandas, argues that the measure should be applied to all emergency services.

“The measure is positive if it is implemented in all hospitals. Or, if any hospital should have a referenced emergency, it should be the central hospitals, namely D. Estefânia, Santa Maria, because they are end-of-line hospitals and reference hospitals. “

Dona Estefânia is one of the 28 hospitals that continue to have pediatric emergency services open during the month of April, operating without any constraints, but Luís Varandas reminds us that it is necessary to improve service in the SNS24.

“There are children who are poorly evaluated, poorly triaged and poorly referred. All the work that is done in emergency care, which I recognize is important for the population, takes away the ability to respond to more complex, rarer pathologies in consultations. There are treatments that are not carried out because doctors are in the emergency room taking care of the simplest things.”

In the Lisbon region, the Centro Hospitalar Lisboa Oeste, which includes São Francisco Xavier and Egas Moniz, has its pediatric emergency department completely closed to the outside during the month of April. Loures stops during the weekend and there are also constraints in Almada and Setúbal.

In Barreiro, the pediatric emergency room is only open for two weeks this month. This is the region where the situation is most complicated.

In the rest of the country, only Leiria has the pediatric emergency department closed two weekends in April.