When a major operation is underway led by the economic groups in the disease business, their political representatives and propagandists, including reactionary sectors that have always wanted the destruction of the National Health Service, it is a national imperative, in the name of the health of the Portuguese, to demand the strengthening of the NHS in order to fully guarantee the right to healthcare.

With the pretext that it is necessary to recover the delays caused in the regular activity of the NHS, due to the exceptional measures taken in the healthcare units to guarantee an immediate response to the epidemic, the private health groups which in the past two months have dodged from the epidemic outbreak and saw their activity greatly reduced, undertook a campaign with the aim of calling into question the capacity of the public service to guarantee the recovery of delays created in waiting lists.

With the National Health Service's irreplaceable role in the response to the epidemic outbreak having been proved and recognised, and it has shown to be the only response capable of guaranteeing the right to healthcare, the moment we live in is decisive for the future of the NHS.

In the fight against the epidemic outbreak, doctors, nurses, technicians, administrative staff and operational assistants have stood out. They are the ones who take risks in the front line, working until exhausted if necessary.

Without the NHS, the treatment of patients affected by COVID-19 would be a ruin and a disaster for many of them and for all of us. In this situation, there would be no insurers or private providers to help the Portuguese.

Today it is clear that the NHS has not only shown a high capacity to carry out its mission, but is in a position, if its financial, technical and human resource conditions are strengthened, to simultaneously maintain the fight against the coronavirus and recover the suspended activity and maintain regular activity.

Emergency Plan

The PCP emphasizes the demand to implement an emergency plan that, based on a rigorous analysis of the work carried out in the last two months, the experiences gathered, the needs identified and the means necessary to combat the epidemic outbreak and regularise the normal activity of the NHS, leaving no one behind, points out a set of priority measures:

1 - With the aim of ending the chronic underfunding to which it has been subjected by successive governments, it is imperative that the transfer of funds from the State Budget to the NHS be reinforced (at least and immediately by 25% of the NHS budget, taking into account that the months of March, April and May were dedicated exclusively to COVID-19), in order to provide healthcare services with the necessary amounts for the provision of care and investment, as well as the autonomy of healthcare units.

End the application of the law on commitments to the health sector.

2 - Mobilisation and modernisation of the diagnosis and therapeutic capacity installed in the NHS and its expansion, namely through internalisation in hospitals of the Complementary Means of Diagnosis and Therapeutics (MCDT), (gradually including haemodialysis) and in articulation and contracting with research and development centres in particular those associated with public university education units.

3 - Recovery by the end of the year 2020, of all medical acts that were suspended or postponed as a result of the response to the epidemic outbreak, namely surgical acts, diagnostic interventions and cancer therapy, vaccinations and complementary exams and maternal and infant and youth health consultations.

4 - Strengthen SNS human resources by:

- Launching a hiring process within 30 days, using whenever possible the ranking lists of candidates following procedures already carried out;

- Converting the contracts of workers hired in the context of fighting the outbreak, into contracts with an effective bond;

- An extraordinary increase in salaries of all current professionals with guaranteed annual updates;

- The establishment of a 35-hour weekly working time for all workers;

- Extra pay for extended working hours;

-The generalisation of the effective public administration bond and Professional Careers for all workers who wish to do so, with the possibility of increasing their pay and training days associated with length of service;

- Hiring specialists to fill shortage in general practice and family medicine and family nurses;

- The creation of a full time dedication regime to be the subject of collective bargaining with organisations representing workers;

- The attribution of a pay supplement (to be attributed to all workers who provide essential services under the terms of DL nº 2-A / 2020), in the amount of 20% of the basic salary in relation to the days on which they actually work, taking into account the risk of exposure to contagion by COVID-19 to which they are subject in the exercise of their duties.

5 -Start by the beginning of September 2020, specialisation training for all doctors in a position to initiate that specialisation by integrating the body of internship of specialists in medical careers as a way of preparing the doctors necessary for the functioning of the NHS.

6 - Increase the installed capacity by 800 acute care beds, in a first phase, by the end of September 2020 (20% of the eliminated beds) and reinforce the number of Intensive Care beds in order to guarantee the needs to fight the epidemic outbreak (in case of its worsening), without jeopardising regular activity in the treatment of other pathologies.

7 -Expand the number of long-term and palliative care beds (400 by September), in the public network, also covering specific responses in the scope of mental health and paediatrics, in order to free hospital beds.

8 - In the fight against COVID-19, it is necessary to guarantee a strategic reserve of personal protective equipment for healthcare professionals, as well as, in the current phase of easing lockdown, to guarantee and expand the number of tests to be carried out to detect affected people and serological tests to help measure population immunity.

9 - Strengthen human, technical and professional resources in the area of public health, and in particular the strengthening of healthcare professionals.

10 - At a particularly difficult time for Portuguese families in prolonged lockdown at home, it is essential to increase the global allocation for Mental Healthcare in order to meet the real needs of existing services and enable the implementation of new units, considered in the existing legislation, ending serious shortages in the sector.

Provide all Primary Healthcare operational units with at least one psychologist with adequate administrative support to support mental health programmes.

11 - In accordance with trade unions, workers’ organisations and employers’ associations, under the supervision of specialists, adopt a national health and safety at work strategy that ensures, in particular, the creation and functioning of health and safety services in the workplace.

Promote, through the National School of Public Health during the months of June, July and August, an information/training programme for public health doctors and occupational doctors on measures to prevent epidemic risk and promote health in the workplace.

12 –Set up occupational health services in all health facilities.

13 –Move quickly with the implementation (by the end of July 2020), of the decision already taken in the Assembly of the Republic to create the National Laboratory of Drugs, with the production and research features, providing the State with an instrument for creating knowhow and at the same time defending national independence and sovereignty.

14 – Create a strategic reserve of drugs and devices within the framework of a permanent interaction with the healthcare units of the National Health Service, reviewed periodically and at least once a year, taking into account technological and epidemiological developments, without ever surpassing their expiry date. A decentralized strategic reserve that will have a part stored in hospitals renewing as they need it and a central reserve stored in the current Military Laboratory.

Have an installed capacity to guarantee and safeguard access to medicines essential by the National Health Service through the adoption of a national strategy for the production of medicines, based either on the effective capacity for the manufacture of medicines by the Military Laboratory (in the future National Laboratory of Drugs), or by promoting strategic partnerships with national companies with national capital to ensure this capacity.

15 –Promote and encourage the conversion of the industry for the production of personal protective equipment, clinical materials and medical equipment, medicines and reagents essential to the country, with the aim of increasing national capacity and reducing external dependence.

Strengthen the NHS as a public, universal, general and free service, efficient and effective as a general and universal healthcare provider, while attributing to the social and private sector a supplementary role, is the path that best serves the interests of the country and the Portuguese.