Questioned by journalists about the lack of staff at the National Institute of Emergency Medicine (INEM), on the sidelines of the inauguration of the building of the regional delegation of the Algarve of that institute, Ana Paula Martins acknowledged the lack of human resources at "various levels", including pre-hospital emergency technicians.

"It's true, there are things missing at INEM. A memorandum was made from the beginning, from the day we entered the Ministry of Health, the president of INEM took care to make a very detailed memorandum on all the needs that INEM faces and is facing, and the need for human resources is recognized", she said.

The minister said that in the coming weeks she should return to the Algarve to work on a plan for the summer, in order to ensure that the lack of human resources, together with the professionals' vacations, does not affect the response that will be given during the period of greater influx of visitors and tourists to the region.

The Minister of Health added that a request has been made for at least 200 technicians, since February, March of last year, stressing that the priority now is for the ministry's services to be able to outline a plan to guarantee the necessary response in the summer.

"And we now have to look at human resources -- it's not just facilities, it's human resources -- to, within the staff or human resources maps, to put it better, that we have within the scope of the Ministry of Health, see how we can effectively make up for these deficiencies", she added.

Ana Paula Martins said that there is also in this context a "collaboration with the firefighters", which the ministry wants to "see maintained and reinforced, and which is also on the table to be reviewed", which can also contribute to this objective.

"It is a worrying situation and it is a situation that we have to be able to - with the region and with those who are on the ground here in the region - resolve as quickly as possible", stressed the minister, revealing that "next week or at the beginning of the following week" she will return to the Algarve.

The objective of this next visit is, according to the minister, to draw up "a response plan for these needs" together with the administration and professionals of the Algarve Local Health Unit (ULS), as well as with INEM.

Ana Paula Martins considered that "time is pressing, because summer is now, it is tomorrow", but she guaranteed that the response will be prepared, "together with the board of directors, and obviously INEM", for the Algarve to have "a plan very quickly activated" for the summer.

"But let me also tell you one thing, the ULS and its board of directors have a plan on the table, now they need reinforcements, they need us to be able to attract more human resources so that, during the summer, they can be here to respond to the medical and surgical emergency and that is what we are going to have to do with the installed capacity in the Algarve", she concluded.

The INEM ambulances of Faro and Quarteira 3, the closest to the facilities that the Minister of Health inaugurated today, will be stopped 76% and 78% of the time in May, respectively, according to the pre-hospital emergency technicians.

In a statement, the Union of Pre-Hospital Emergency Technicians (STEPH), which made a survey of the inoperability rate of INEM ambulances for the month of May, stresses that more than half have "high periods of inoperability".

From the survey carried out, STEPH concludes that 20 ambulances have more than 50% of inoperability during the month of May and that there are ambulances that "have not opened for several months due to lack of technicians". In the case of the ambulances of Faro and Quarteira 3, the inoperability rates are mainly due to the lack of technicians, according to STEPH.

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