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They were two difficult weeks for the Government. And all on the same topic: the covid-19 outbreak in a house in Reguendos de Monsaraz. That killed 18 people. First, an interview with the Minister of Labor, Ana Mendes Godinho, in which she acknowledged that she had not read a devastating report on the case, prepared by the Ordem dos Médicos. She ended up reading it later, but forced the prime minister to defend it and close the matter. However, the following week, which ends, it was António Costa who led a new controversy on the subject. The prime minister said, in an interview with Expresso, that the Ordem dos Médicos does not have the competence to carry out audits like the one it did in Reguengos de Monsaraz.
What earned him the criticism. But a video that circulated on social networks, of an off the record with the journalists who had interviewed him, where the words “uncles” and “cowards” directed by António Costa in relation to the doctors in the case of Reguengos de Monsaraz, dictated. May I end up receiving the Order of Doctors this week. It was the president himself who asked the audience to ease the tension. He asked for it on Monday and São Bento was quick to reply: he scheduled it for the next day, at 9:00 am. But Costa did not receive them alone. He called the Minister of Health, Marta Temido, and the Secretary of State António Lacerda Sales (appreciated by doctors and respected figure in the PS) for the meeting. That should have sealed the end of the tension. In the end, the statements to journalists left no room for questions, but the prime minister stressed that the misunderstandings had been cleared up. “I think it was an unequivocal testimony of my appreciation and consideration for Portuguese physicians and the majority of health professionals,” added the Prime Minister, addressing the president of the Portuguese Medical Association, Miguel Guimarães.
The case was closed for São Bento. Costa won the battle, according to several socialists heard by SOL. And they all converged on the idea that it appeased the problem, with a controlled political cost, but “it went well.”
But is the problem of the medical profession solved? No this. The causes predate this episode and result, in part, from the animosity that exists between the doctors and the guardianship: Marta Temido. The minister comes from the hospital administration sector, and knowledgeable sources in the area remind SOL that doctors and hospital administrators rarely get along. “It’s something old,” recalls a source from the sector to SOL. António Lacerda Sales, Secretary of State for Health, is a well-regarded (socialist) doctor by the class. Furthermore, in the PS there is this perception: that the politician and the doctor have more capacity to guarantee consensus compared to the Minister of Health.
Accounts done, Costa resolved a dispute, but did not resolve a problem. There are even those who remember, in fact, that in the past, José Sócrates, then Prime Minister, also had a war with the judges when he wanted to reduce his judicial vacations. This despite the fact that the two examples are not comparable. In any case, in this case, the president of the Ordem dos Médicos, Miguel Guimarães, wanted to pressure António Costa to dialogue. But the process did not go as well as the prime minister did at the end of the hearing in São Bento.
The union structures did not listen to the word “excuse” from the prime minister and Miguel Guimarães ended up sending a letter to his peers (after the hearing) to assure that the head of government was not faithful in public words to what he said during the meeting. In the president’s version, Costa “did not reveal the retraction message in the same emphatic way that happened at the meeting,” Miguel Guimarães wrote. In conversations between health professionals, the result of the hearing ended up dictating a challenge to the president. In addition, there were those who reminded SOL that the president’s letter did not have the signature of the president of the North Regional Council of the Order of Doctors, António Araújo (brother of the former undersecretary of State and Health, Fernando Araújo, in the previous government). socialist).
Among the Socialists there are those who remember that Miguel Guimarães said, in Parliament, on December 4, that the Order “does not have the power to control.” At that time, the president answered questions about a case that shocked the country: that of a baby born in Setúbal with malformations that were not detected during pregnancy. On the other hand, a socialist source reminds SOL that an outburst made in an informal conversation between the Prime Minister and journalists contradicts, in some way, what António Costa himself advised his government in the past. When the then Minister of Culture, João Soares, offered virtual “slaps” on the Facebook social network to Público columnists (and was forced to resign), the president insisted that “as members of the Government, not even at the table of the breakfast, they no longer remember that they are members of the Government. ” And, in addition, you will have delivered a propaedeutic speech to your team to avoid future problems.
As a result of the controversy, which opposes Costa to the Ordem dos Médicos, António Capucho, a former PSD activist, tells SOL that “it was fundamentally necessary to clarify more. Proof of this is that the Ordem dos Médicos already rose to the ground to say that what the Prime Minister has transmitted to the media, without giving him the opportunity to ask questions, is far from what they will have said directly to the Order of Doctors, between doors and between walls, and therefore there is no clarification whatsoever. The misunderstandings. But what misunderstandings? We don’t know. There are no apologies, there is no acknowledgment of guilt by the government and I think it was all in cod waters. “
This week, the former president of the Illustrious Bar Association José Miguel Júdice affirmed in his comment to the SIC News “As Causas” that this whole case may reveal an “emotional lack of control, which reveals a mixture of pride, violence, madness, fatigue and apparent lack of serious rigor ”of the prime minister. For his part, João Soares, a former socialist deputy, stated in RTP3:“ If what the Prime Minister said is what was transposed in a written medium, although online, I don’t see anything particularly serious about it. It is an expression of disgust in relation to what manipulation is … I deeply regret that we are transforming this tragedy that happened in Reguengos into a political party dispute that does not have to be. ”And he defended that the situation in homes it is unsustainable and that “it is necessary to find people who fall in love with the work they are going to do in the social area.” When contacted by SOL, João Soares did not want to add more about this case.
From a partisan point of view, BE called for an end to the mischief, the PSD demanded to know the reports on Reguengos de Monsaraz, while the CDS synthesized that “socialism increasingly worsens the health of our democracy”, after having asked the Minister of Labor has already resigned. André Ventura, from Chega, went further by saying that Costa “barely has the means to stay in office.” The Liberal Initiative called the case “unacceptable.”
On the Belém side, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa called for a joint effort – “hand in hand” – from everyone, because the Portuguese would not understand this frenzy. In addition, it required strengthening coordination between the Ministry of Health and Labor to address problems at home.
