A updated guidance by the General Health Directorate (DGS) on 23 July predicts that children and young people removed from families enter the shelters alone and remain in isolation for 14 days, even if they have a negative test for infection with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19.
A news it is advanced today by the newspaper Público, which reports that the installation committee of the AjudAjudar Association sent a complaint to the Ombudsman on Monday because of the guidance of the Directorate-General for Health (DGS).
The association considers the orientation unconstitutional, since it is facing a “gross violation of the rights of the most unprotected children and young people”, says one of the heads of the AjudAjudar Association, who defends that “DGS start issuing specific guidelines for homes care, which ceases to equate children and young people with the elderly “.
The document signed by the DGS recognizes that measures can be “penalizing a child who has just been taken in”, but argues that “not implementing them may harm the interest of other children and the professionals and volunteers who work at the institution”.
So far, the Social Security Institute (ISS) has not yet publicly commented on the DGS’s policy in question, writes the same newspaper.
Portugal accounts for at least 1,801 deaths associated with COVID-19 in 55,720 confirmed cases of infection, according to the latest bulletin from the Directorate-General for Health (DGS).
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