According to the secretary of state for social security, Cláudia Joaquim, the government plans to expand the nursing care units on offer across the country but is first identifying unopened units that have already been built but have never been signed off, preventing them from opening for the public. Expanding the network is a “priority” for the current Socialist government, representing as it does an “essential” response to what in the long term is expected to be an increase in the number of adults and children that need this type of care, she said, adding that the issue “should be dealt with as soon as possible”.
This year the government intends to add “several hundred places” to the network by injecting an extra 40 million from the social security system alone, after having spent 35 million in this way last year.
“We are doing a survey of a range of units that were built and financed under the Modular programme, which was set up in 2009, and we know that there are some premises that were built some years ago and that were never signed off and which are therefore not functioning,” Joaquim said.
According to the secretary of state, the review should be concluded within weeks. After that the units in question are to be integrated in planning for 2016, in a first phase, and for following years, in a second phase.
Those designed to be paediatric nursing care units are in a first phase to serve as units for paediatric palliative care.
Where mental healthcare units and other nursing care units are concerned, the plan is for them to come into operation before the end of this year.
According to Joaquim, at the end of 2015 there were some 6,700 places in the network, at some 600 public and private institutions.
The announcement comes at a time when a debate has begun in Portugal about legalising assisted dying, and amid concerns that provision for palliative and nursing care are insufficient in the country.