“For us it is a very worrying situation. If we didn’t stop and managed to keep out of this process [covid] the IPOs [Instituto Português de Oncologia] – although with some decrease – our concern in the area of oncology goes exactly to the screening of breast cancer, cervical cancer and colorectal cancer ”, said Lacerda Sales.
Speaking on the sidelines of the conference “Valuing and Strengthening Health Services in the Region of Leiria”, organized by the Economic and Social Group of the Region of Leiria, in the Monastery of Batalha, the Secretary of State assured that the Government is “accelerating and doing the reprogramming of all these screenings in all regions of the country ”.
At the conference, the minister stressed that in the autumn / winter period there will be “two major challenges”: creating a circuit for respiratory patients, in order to “divide well” users who can be covid and non-covid and “resume existential activity. programmed ”.
“We are not hostage to the covid-19 ″, guaranteed António Lacerda Sales, referring to the“ concern ”with the“ pressure on health care ”in non-covid-19 diagnoses. For this reason, a “reinforcement of human resources” was carried out.
However, he admitted that there has been “easier to resume activity in hospitals” and “greater difficulty” in reactivating activity in primary health care.
“One reason is that it is impossible to create safety circuits in some health extensions. First, we have to create the conditions. But there has been a recovery in the existential activity of ACeS [Agrupamentos de Centros de Saúde] and hospitals ”, he reinforced.
The Secretary of State was also confident in the response of the National Health Service to intensive care.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, we had 1,142 fans. The concern was to double that capacity. As the fans don’t work alone, we reinforced the human resources structure and that was one of the biggest victories. ”
Lacerda Sales also reported that in the last six months, only 18% to 19% of beds used in intensive care are covid patients and non-covid users in this area have not exceeded 63%, which “gave some tranquility”.
The official highlighted the “elasticity” of hospitalizations, which allows, “at any time”, to create a covid or non-covid circuit, according to the needs.
Portugal accounts for at least 1,931 deaths associated with covid-19 in 71,156 confirmed cases of infection, according to the latest bulletin from the Directorate-General for Health.
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