Speech delivered by the Regional Secretary for Health and Sport - Communication

Secretaria Regional da Saúde e Desporto

Full text of the speech delivered on Monday by the Regional Secretary for Health and Sport, Clélio Meneses, in Horta, during the discussion of the Plan and Budget for 2023:

"In the week marking two years of the current governance of the Azores, with just as many years left to complete the term, we are presenting an Investment Plan and Budget based on the sense of responsibility that is essential to the exercise of public duties and the credibility of what has already been achieved, so as to deliver what Azoreans need and what was left undone for too many years.

With the publication of the budget implementation decree for 2021 on June 28, 2021, we have, one year and four months later, the political and legal legitimisation of the 2021 Budget and the same document for 2022.

During this time, we have had to fight a pandemic, with the extraordinary complexity that everyone knows and the acknowledged success, just as we had to face a seismovolcanic crisis with the promptness and efficiency that the Azoreans have experienced. Meanwhile, we have created the conditions to promote the pressing structural reorganisation of the Regional Health System that will enable us to achieve ever greater efficiency, based on the strategic reflection that is being developed within the scope of the Health 2030 Forum, on the different islands and with the most distinctive collaborations.

After this, we will request the consultation of the Regional Health Council and, before putting the Regional Health Plan for the decade under public discussion, and without prejudice to this, we will encourage the participation and contributions from all parties with parliamentary seat. The broader the consensus, the more sustained will be the decisions and their implementation.

This vision of strategic definition and development of political action in Health underpins the approval and implementation of the Regional Mental Health Programme, aimed at a scientifically based and structurally sustained intervention in such a delicate and relevant area, as well as the revision and coherent consolidation of all the legislation and regulations regarding something so determinant for the health of the Azoreans as the travel of patients and medical professionals.

Planning with a clear strategy and implementing with determination are the only effective way to overcome the problems of the sector and to avoid what happened with the Regional Health Plan for 2014-2016, extended to 2020, which only achieved 12 targets out of 43 indicators that had been identified.

And structural problems require a lot of planning, time and action.

We all acknowledge the severity of chronic underfunding as well as the complexity of the shortage and consequent fatigue of health professionals. We also acknowledge the negative impacts of degraded and, in some cases, inappropriate infrastructures and obsolete equipment, falling behind the reality of our times. The changing age structure of society requires different approaches, behaviours and responses from everyone. All this results in difficult access to health care, both in time and distance, which undermines the necessary confidence of citizens in the system to which they contribute or on which they depend.

There is much work ahead of us to solve problems, introduce changes and restore credibility to plans, policies and politicians.

Therefore, the documents presented are based on a clear strategy of what needs to be done and on the credibility of what has already been done.

We intend to hire more health professionals, increasing by 50% the amount for incentives to encourage the maintenance of doctors and nurses, which we propose with the belief of those who, in less than two years, have already hired more professionals for the sector than in several years of previous governance. Today, the Azoreans have 62 more doctors than when we took office, 108 more nurses than at the end of 2020, and 23 more senior diagnostic and therapeutic technicians.

We propose to promote the valuing of health professionals with a 100% increase in health training, with the same determination with which we will pursue the settlement and updating of careers and salaries of health professionals. We will take forward what has been agreed upon with representatives of nurses, pharmacists, senior diagnostic and therapeutic technicians, and professionals in general careers. This gives us motivation and ensures the credibility of the process we are beginning with the representatives of medical careers. The workers hired on individual work contracts, whose cases are underway in the respective hospitals, have already felt the impact on their careers and salaries, covering 2,113 professionals in the sector and corresponding to an amount of approximately 5 million Euros.

Just as we have undertaken and completed the radiotherapy process on the island of Terceira, we propose an increase in the Special Supplement for Displaced Patients.

We will continue to reduce the surgery waiting lists and waiting time for access to health care, through the allocation of 3.7 million Euros to the Cirurge programme and the Health Voucher. We will improve productivity and launch the patient waiting list management entity, which will soon begin its work. We want to implement these proposals with the same determination as we have already reduced the number of Azoreans on surgery waiting lists by over two thousand, but, more importantly, as we have managed to reduce the average waiting time for surgery by 153 days. Yes, when the opposition left the Government of the Azores, about two years ago, the average time an Azorean had to wait for surgery was 540 days!

Azoreans will have access to more healthcare, with the same guarantee of what has already been achieved, with more consultations, exams and surgeries in 2021, than in 2020, 2019 and 2018.

The Azoreans living on the islands without a hospital will have more consultations and exams without having to travel away from home.  We have ensured that this goal is achieved with the same efficiency that has already ensured that 11,244 of these consultations were carried out in 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, 4,503 more than in 2020, 1,181 more than in 2019 and 1,371 more than in 2018, years without any pandemic restriction.

We will start the procedures for works in the health centres of Ribeira Grande, Vila Franca do Campo and Povoação, with the same determination of those who have already identified possible construction sites and have prepared preliminary programmes for the health units of Maia and Livramento. The long-awaited works in the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital have already begun this Monday and there are works about to begin in the Corvo Health Centre, whose works contract has already been awarded. The works in the Nordeste Health Centre will start next January and the works in the Lajes do Pico Health Centre are expected to begin soon. These interventions will be carried out with the same confidence that has led us to solve the problem of the Velas Health Centre, whose works are in the final stages.

We will launch a new tender for the works in the Horta Hospital, with the same goal that has already led to the completion of the construction works in the car park, which were launched and carried out by this Government.

We will invest in the acquisition of equipment that will modernise and speed up health responses, through digitisation and telehealth, with the same rigour and capacity that has led to an investment of 6.5 million Euros and an additional investment of 3.5 million Euros under the RRP in the first half of 2023. This will also make access easier for professionals and patients, ensuring the interoperability of systems that is so necessary and has such a significant impact on the lives of the Azoreans.

We are assessing the implementation of lung cancer screening in order to extend the preventive intervention that has been and is being developed by the Azores Oncology Centre, which will also start screening for diabetic retinopathy.

We are moving away from a system that is based on Emergency Services as a response to citizens, where most of the care requested and provided there does not effectively correspond to emergency situations.

Hence, we will have an established strategy and a perfectly-identified path based on the reinforcement of prevention, the improvement of primary care and proximity care, and on the differentiated and qualified specialisation of hospital care.

We have assumed this purpose and commitment for the Azoreans. More than words, with deeds that value them.

In the fight against one of the greatest scourges of our times and society, we will pursue a clear focus on prevention, with specific and identified measures in their implementation and timing, without neglecting the actions in terms of dissuasion, treatment and reintegration, implementing the strategic plan currently under public consultation. We continue to talk about something that requires widespread consensus and commitment, to the extent of the problem itself. We want a society less dependent on addictive substances and behaviours. We want a freer society!

Regarding Sport, we will pursue an innovative path towards innovation, based on a strategic vision consolidated in science and with a far-reaching impact on society, through the widespread promotion of physical activity and the qualification of competition.

The implementation of the DESpertar (Sport, Education and Health) study, which will assess the physical condition after the pandemic from a scientific standpoint, has the Zero to the Olympic Games programme as its partner, providing different responses for the different age levels and abilities of Azoreans, such as the Active Azores programme, the European Week of Sport or the "Jamor at a Distance" programme.

We want more active and healthy Azoreans, who will have the potential of standing out in the national and international sporting context.

As for the protection of our populations, we will continue to renew the fleet of emergency vehicles and heavy vehicles, so as to replace some that have been in use for more than twenty years.

We will increase the amounts provided for in protocols and the support to firefighters' associations in the Region, including emergency land transport, which will increase by 33% from 2020 to 2023, amounting to 1.4 million Euros.

Similarly, we will increase the amounts granted to the training of our fire brigades with a view to developing their capacities and acknowledging their effort and commitment.

We want a society that is increasingly better prepared to face the upheavals of nature, with the same determination as it managed the seismovulcanic crisis on the island of São Jorge.

There are problems that still endure and they will continue to exist, but they will only be overcome with the solutions, determination and good faith that have led to us achieving better results today than in November 2020.

After these two years, there are those who want to continue to be the face and voice of problems, concerns, anxiety and chaos. There are those who want to continue to be on the side of problems.

We want to present and implement solutions to solve problems. We are on the side of the solutions and always on the side of the Azoreans!