More than 8.7 million vaccination certificates issued in Portugal
The certificate is less and less requested because more than 85% of the population is already vaccinated, said in an interview with Lusa Luis Goes Pinheiro, president of SPMS, the entity responsible for issuing certificates, the SNS24 Line and the information technology systems of the National Health Service (SNS).
Currently, the document is required in Portugal to enter a bar or a nightclub, for elderly people to visit homes or people in hospitals, for travel and for events in rooms with more than 1,000 people or 5,000 abroad.
Commenting on the importance of digitals, Luís Goes Pinheiro stated that “fulfilled many functions”, from logo to “giving a little push for vaccination”.
“In Portugal, it would probably not be necessary because in fact the Portuguese gave an absolutely extraordinary proof of responsibility, but the certificate is not only Portuguese, it is a European certificate and I think it was important to give this boost to vaccination“, he stressed.
They also have the function of reassuring people, in addition to having made “a decisive contribution” to greater freedom: “The vaccination was crucial and the certificate attests to that”.
Luís Goes Pinheiro also appealed to the Portuguese to pay attention to the validity of the vaccination certificate, which is 180 days, and to renew it on the SNS24 mobile application, on the SNS24 portal or in Espaços Cidadão.
“App SNS24” was qualitative leap
“The SNS24 ‘app’ is one of the vehicles that we intend to be preferred in the relationship with the citizen, for its simplicity, and for focusing on the same point what is important for people in their relationship with the SNS“, he said, advancing that” in the next four quarters there will be new developments at a very fast pace “in this application.
With the pandemic, the contact center (808 24 24 24) gained greater notoriety and people began to feel that it was “a door always open for them”.
“So much so that 2021 is already the year with the most calls answered in the NHS. We are talking about more than 4,350,000”, he stressed, also referring that the service passed around 1.3 million requests for diagnostic tests to covid- 19
The official said that when a pandemic started, more than a year ago, the SNS 24 received “about half (of the calls), so the number of people using the SNS 24 is already very relevant”.
The SNS 24 branches were also created, units that operate, for example, in parish councils and which are intended to support people who have “very difficult” to use information systems.
111 branches have already been opened and will open more by the end of the year, with the objective being to extend these units throughout the country, said Luís Goes Pinheiro.