To avoid a recurrence of the chaos seen in A&E wards at Lisbon’s Amadora Sintra and São José hospitals over Christmas, health officials asked health centres in and around the capital to consider extending their working times and stay open until later, to avoid non-urgent patients from swamping hospitals’ urgências.
Instructions were given for all health centres able to extend their working hours to do so on 30 and 31 December and 2 January, to cater for walk-in patients.
The Amadora-Sintra Hospital, or Hospital Fernando Fonseca, said it had also secured an extra 11 doctors to work over the New Year, until 5 January, six of whom will work in the emergency department.
A rise in the number of patients seeking medical treatment was expected for the New Year, not only because of festivities but also because of the plummeting temperatures.
Amadora-Sintra hit the headlines last week following reports of patients waiting up to 20 hours to be seen by a doctor over the 24 hours from 25 to 26 December.
A lack of doctors and a significant rise in the number of patients were blamed for the inundated A&E department, the functioning of which returned to normal days later.
However, to prevent a repetition of the scenario the hospital was given authorisation to recruit extra professionals to bolster services over the New Year.
Reports of a man who died in Lisbon’s São José hospital’s A&E department during the early hours of the morning on 27 December, after allegedly waiting over six hours to be seen, did little to dampen criticism of the situation.
According to reports the 80-year-old was found dead on a stretcher in the hospital’s Urgências department by his son. The elderly man is said to have suffered a stroke and, his son told SIC, he was not assisted nor had his patient chart been filled in.
The case is being investigated and, Luís Cunha Ribeiro of the Lisbon and Vale do Tejo Regional Health Administration told newspaper Correio da Manhã, “If it is found that there was a margin for errors, it will be admitted.”
Meanwhile the Algarve Hospital Central (CHA), which manages the the region’s main hospital’s in Portimão, Faro and Lagos as well as the Basic Emergency Service (SUB) units in Vila Real de Santo António and Albufeira, said all of its emergency department rotas for the New Year were complete, and only the Albufeira unit had required a boost in medics “due to an influx of the population” over that period.
CHA Algarve told Lusa News Agency it could guarantee “emergency wards are fully manned in all units” under its tutelage over the New Year, when the local population soars due to an influx of visitors.