Portugal: Leonor Beleza warns of “invasive control” of the Ministry of Finance in health
The former Minister of Health or Beauty that there is a “huge opinion” of the Ministry of Finance in relation to the Ministry of Finance, even “an efficient control” on the part of the tax authorities.
Portugal Digital with Lusa
At the dinner-conference of the 18th edition of the PSD Summer University, which ends this Sunday (4th) in Castelo de Vide (Portalegre), Leonor Beleza never referred to the resignation of the still Minister of Health, Marta Temido, but defended changes structures in this sector.
“It has been the number of doctors, the growing number of nurses and the budget allocated to the SNS [Serviço Nacional de Saúde]. There is something in all of this that doesn’t work well and needs reforms that are not cosmetic reforms. It’s not putting more money and more professionals there, it doesn’t solve it, there’s a productivity problem”, defended, Saturday (3), the former minister.
Without questioning the need for tight financial controls in the services of the Ministry of Cavaco Silva (between 1985 and 1990), he considered that there is currently “an interference there that is easy to accept” by the Ministry of Finance and Finance.
Specifically, State Councilor Leonor Beleza stressed that in the recent statute of the National Health Service, in the process of regularization, it is foreseen that the definition of the annual activity plan and the budget of each hospital will be made by the Minister of Finance.
“It is not by the Minister of Health, nor is it with the intervention of the Minister of Health, it is by the Minister of Finance […] It helps to understand how it ends up being perhaps dominant, not in the official discourse in practice, the financial part in the provision of health services”, he said.
For the president of the Champalimaud Foundation, “there is some change in the way this need for control has to be seen”.
“And above all, there is one thing: there is a distrust on the part of the Ministry of Finance in relation to what the Ministry of Health does. Everyone knows that these people know very little exists, I just don’t know if everyone knows to what extent a thorough control, ”he warned.
In his “class” before the young social democrats, Leon Beleza or presented figures that point to a growing funding by private health care and in the provision of that same care to users, considering that the practice partly contradicts what is being written in the current Basic Health Law.
“There is a weight that should not be remembered in the financing of health care, despite the fact that the Constitution says that health services tend to be private and can be free of charge”, although considering health tending to be the current text.
Leonor Beleza regretted the end of Public-Private Partnerships in the area of health “that works”, highlighted the “monumental effect” that the reduction from 40 hours to 3 hours had in this sector, thinking and sometimes decision-makers were more concerned with “ how can Portugal create more wealth than knowing where to spend the money”.
“Our problem is to know how our country gets richer […] Let’s stop thinking that we are only happy when money comes in”, he defended.
At the end of the dinner, a video of the PSD’s Summer University, former deputy Coelho, with the students and the MEP with charm, the reference directors of Pedro Passo, was delivered.
The 18th edition of the PSD Summer University, a political training initiative for young people that has been taking place since 2003 (with a two-year break in 2020 and 2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic), takes place in Castelo de Vide (Portalegre) from Monday until this Sunday (4), with closing, the charge of the president of the party Luís Montenegro.