-PUB-
“CHTMAD has not had a clinical director for many months. An institution without a clinical director is a very weak institution. It is an institution that is certainly not fulfilling its mission with people because it has huge gaps in its day-to-day activities”, said Eurico Castro Alves, speaking to the Lusa agency.
For the president of the North Regional Section of the Ordem dos Médicos, a delay of “a month or two” would be understandable, but this period of time shows, from his point of view, “lack of care”.
“There is a lack of care in appointing a clinical director. It is understandable that in a month or two there is a delay. But there are long months since he has no clinical director and problems begin to accumulate that come to our attention ”, he said.
The current board of directors ended its term in December 2021 and, earlier this year, the body’s president, Rita Castanheira, asked for her resignation from the position she has held since July 2019.
As of August 2022, CHTMAD is also without clinical direction.
On March 7, contacted by the Lusa agency, the Ministry of Health confirmed the resignation of the president who will remain in office until March 30. Manuel Pizarro’s ministry also said that the “process of appointing the new administration is underway”, without giving any dates for this purpose.
The situation at CHTMAD, which also includes the hospitals of Chaves and Lamego, is causing concern among professionals working there, users and political parties.
Member of the Board of Directors of the Regional Organization of Vila Real of the PCP (DORVIR) and elected from the CDU in the Municipal Assembly of Chaves, Manuel Cunha stated that for 15 months the administration “has been in management functions”, considering that this whole situation is “ paralyze” the hospital and questioning whether “someone who has been in management for more than a year can look at the hospital with a vision of the future”.
In a press conference on March 6, the communist leader mocked saying that “it is being discovered that hospitals do not even need a clinical director”, because “this one has been working without one for six months”.
The Ordem dos Médicos has also expressed its concern, having issued a statement in November in which it classified the absence of a clinical director as a “serious threat to the regular functioning” of CHTMAD.
More recently, when taking office in February, the new president of the Sub-regional Council of Vila Real of the Ordem dos Médicos, Fernando Salvador, considered that the “board of directors has done everything to maintain the quality of care for patients, but without a doubt some that it is very important to have a clinical director”, because he is “the maximum representative of all the doctors in the hospital” and there are competences that “are exclusive”.
In December, the Municipal Assembly of Vila Real approved a motion calling for the intervention of the Minister of Health so that, “using his powers and as quickly as possible, appoint or have appointed a clinical director and an element for the administration of CHTMAD ”.
The motion was presented by the PSD bench in the Municipal Assembly and was unanimously approved by the other parties, PS, CDS-PP and Chega.
In the document, it is considered that the lack of a clinical direction is a situation that “perpetuates beyond what is acceptable and with no end in sight” and it also refers that CHTMAD also saw its board of directors “bereaved, after the resignation of one more element”.
