The creation of a commission to review the hospital referral network for maternal and child health is not a new measure. The decision taken by Minister Marta Temido last week recovers a job requested in 2017, when Adalberto Campos Fernandes was Minister of Health, reports Público in this Wednesday’s edition.
However, the work of this commission was never completed. To the daily newspaper, the Ministry of Health justifies the non-completion of the work with the “epidemiological situation caused by the pandemic”, but adds that the process will “now be resumed” and the proposal “must be presented within 180 days”.
“The members of the Committee for Monitoring the Emergency Response in Gynecology/Obstetrics and Childbirth Block are also part of the technical group that will prepare the proposal to create the Hospital Referral Network for Maternal and Child Health”, says a ministerial source to Público.
Gonçalo Cordeiro Ferreira, coordinator of the 2017 commission, mentions to the newspaper that only part of the work of this group has been completed, which concerns the hospital network of gynecology-obstetrics and neonatalology. The other part, says the pediatrician, is “very complex”, as it encompasses several pediatric specialties and subspecialties, not having been completed before the beginning of the pandemic.
