The Order of Doctors (OM) today recommended the creation of a financing line for the new coronavirus in order to allow health institutions to act with “autonomy, adaptability and speed” in response to “a very dynamic situation”.
The measure is part of a set of eight recommendations made by the Ordem dos Médicos following the “outbreak by the new coronavirus and in view of what is known so far”, says the OM in a statement.
The proposals aim to contribute “in a positive way to a better monitoring of what is happening on the ground, to enable health institutions to be able to respond quickly to logistical and human resources needs and to contain the transmission of cases in Portugal. ”.
In addition to the creation of a specific financing line for Covid-19, the OM recommends “the well-defined identification of a chain of command”, led by the Directorate-General for Health, which communicates clearly and serves as a link between the various stakeholders.
He also defends the “urgent publication and wide dissemination” of the National Contingency Plan and the appointment of a new director for the National Program for the Prevention and Control of Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance, which “has been without leadership for more than six months”.
“Asymptomatic doctors who return from areas affected by the coronavirus, with active transmission in the community, should evaluate with the respective institution, namely with the occupational health services, the measures to be adopted”, recommends the OM.
He also advises that doctors should not go to medical and scientific meetings, national or international, that are not strictly essential and that scientific meetings scheduled for Portugal may be postponed.
For OM, the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) should improve all the information disseminated and adapt its ‘website’ to be navigable through smartphones, the medium currently most used by health professionals, but also by citizens.
Wide dissemination and implementation of the rules for the protection of health professionals and ways of monitoring patients, whether on an outpatient or inpatient basis, are also part of the order’s recommendations.
The Ordem dos Médicos also reiterates its “total trust” in the DGS and “availability to collaborate with the competent authorities in whatever they deem necessary”, recalling that it also created a multidisciplinary Crisis Office in January to monitor this outbreak.
Today a confirmed case of Covi-19 in Portugal was released and the other case awaits a counter-analysis.
A Portuguese crew member of a cruise ship is hospitalized in Japan with confirmation of infection.
The Covid-19 outbreak, detected in December in China, and which can cause respiratory infections such as pneumonia, caused at least 2,980 deaths and infected more than 87,000 people, according to data reported by 60 countries.
Of the infected people, more than 41,000 recovered.
In addition to 2,873 deaths in China, there are fatalities in Iran, Italy, South Korea, Japan, France, Taiwan, Australia, Thailand, the United States of America and the Philippines.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Covid-19 outbreak as an international public health emergency and increased the risk to “very high”.
The DGS maintained on Saturday the risk of the epidemic for public health at “moderate to high”.
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