Ana Jorge concerned about losing Health Professionals

In an interview granted to the Lusa News Agency on the 27th of December 2009, the Minister for Health, Ana Jorge, showed her concern about the fact that health professionals were leaving the state sector for the private sector. Talking about the most pressing issues for the sector, she also stated her desire to work in order to increase the motivation of National Health Service workers.

“I am somewhat worried about people leaving, mainly because there is a group of very experienced professionals who are leaving, professionals who trained in the public system, who are responsible for good work and who are also those who train the younger workers”, the minister considered.

If on the one hand she stated that the response provided by the National Health System has been increasing both in number and in quality, on the other hand she recognized that “there is a downbeat feeling and a lack of motivation among the professionals”. According to Ana Jorge this is one of the consequences of several changes that have taken place over recent years with the reform of the Public Administration and the system of medical careers.

“All of this is a major change that has to do with the human resources in health, and we have to invest in this in order to capture them and keep them within the health system”, she concluded.

The Internal Organisation of Hospitals is one of the Priorities for 2010
In this interview to the Lusa Agency, Ana Jorge also admitted that she is “very worried” about the internal organisation of the hospitals, revealing that this will be one of the most important issues in 2010, along with the consolidation of the reforms started by the previous government.

“One aspect that worries us a great deal and that we must think about is the internal organisation of the hospitals and the functioning of the health providing services”, she stated when she was questioned about the prospects for hospitals this year.
She added that the aim is to have an internal organisation that involves “the multi-professional teams more and that, like we did with primary health care, may have their own organisational model in order to better respond to health providing but with greater satisfaction for the professionals and greater autonomy”.

Ana Jorge creates a Working Group to study Hospital Organisation 

For this reason in early 2010 there will be the forming of a “project team that will have to make proposals and study the process in order to identify the alternatives” in terms of reorganising the services. For the Health Minister this project will “obviously have to involve the professionals with hospital experience in the several different areas”.
In the smaller hospital the priority for the current Ministry of Health team is to rethink their internal organisation and to define the management model. Ana Jorge stated that the method of managing the smaller hospitals will have to be studied as “on their own they cannot have a business-type management”.

Another important aim is to consolidate some of the reforms started by the previous government, namely in primary health care, with the creation of more “Family Health Units” (USF).

Consolidation of Continued Care
Ana Jorge also considered that it was necessary to “broaden continued care” in order to provide greater expression to “palliative care”, which has to “have specific teams with special training”. The Health Minister’s aim is to reinforce “home care, both in continued care and in the area of palliative care”.
Also in continued care there is a new aspect: Ana Jorge wants to begin the process of continued care in mental health.

Carlos André
Editorial Team  – and Lusa
carlos.andre@campus.ul.pt