Former secretary warns that “without access to health it is not worth having large hospitals”

The former regional secretary of Health and doctor Manuel Brito said this morning, at the JPP conferences, that the population’s difficulty in accessing health services in acceptable times “is the great fragility of our health system” and that it is of a transversal problem, which affects “not only Madeira, but the continent and the whole of Europe”.

“It is a concern that is not easy to resolve but that, little by little, some solutions will surely be found, because if we do not have access to health, it is not worth having great medicine in large hospitals. It is a serious problem, that crosses the whole of Europe and there are countries that are worse off than us, like the United Kingdom. But that has to be on the table. We have to guarantee every citizen that, when he needs it, he will have access to health care” , declared the professional at the meeting held in Santa Cruz.

Manuel Brito assumed that “we are experiencing a major crisis in the National Health Service (SNS)” but underlined that “there is a light at the end of the tunnel” and that he deposits “some hope” in the changes that should be introduced by the new executive board of the SNS led by physician Fernando Araújo.

Brito took advantage of this event to share his concern with “the very serious problem of the demographic catastrophe” that Portugal is experiencing, with the birth rate falling and aging increasing, with the average life expectancy at 81 years. “I think Madeira is the region with the lowest birth rate in the country, which is bad”, he observed. This demographic trend “is already decompensating” the social balance, with “the country running the risk of the new generations not being able to sustain the health care and reforms of the elderly”. “If there is not a balance and a renewal of generations, this tomorrow the system is totally unsustainable”, he warned. In this regard, the doctor considers that “municipalities must do something”

In recent years, Manuel Brito has been practicing his profession in Lisbon, but it is likely that he will transfer his activity to Madeira from 2023 onwards. The doctor considers that his “cradle was Coimbra” but that Madeira is his home”.

From Diário Notícias