The Medical Syndicate (OM) has asked several entities to ask the Constitutional Court to examine the state budget law that provides for the appointment of non-specialized doctors to fill the shortage of family doctors.
In the letter accessed by Lusa, the OM stated that it “has no” legitimacy, in light of the law, to request a back-to-back examination of the rules on the 2022 state budget and that, for this reason, it requires “referral of the competent inspection process to the Constitutional Court.” “.
A source from OM said that a letter has been sent to the President of the Republic, Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic, Attorney General of the Republic, Ombudsman, Parliamentary leaders, excluding PS, among other entities. .
The position was approved in the plenary session of the National Council of the Order and follows the possibility of appointing non-specialist doctors to fill the shortage of family doctors, a measure that former Health Minister Marta Temido confirmed she intends to respond to. Only for cases of acute illness, without calculating the percentages of coverage in general medicine and family.
As for the manual, this action constitutes a “serious violation of EU law”, as it calls into question the obligations of member states, in this case Portugal, enshrined in the Community Directive on the recognition of professional qualifications.
“In particular, Article 29 of the Directive has been violated, which makes the exercise of the activity of a specialist in general and family medicine within the scope of the relevant health service dependent on having one of the qualifications specified by the Directive itself,” the order claims, that, for this reason, it also sent its offer to European Commission.
Furthermore, the Operational Manual asserts, the rule in question represents a “serious violation of the right to health care and the right to health” enshrined in the Constitution.
“The principle of equality imposes on public authorities (and on the legislature) the obligation to equal treatment of all individuals before the law and to prohibit groundless discrimination, without prejudice to the imposition of differences in treatment between persons, when there are relevant peculiarities that lack protection,” she says. document.
According to the order led by Miguel Guimarães, by assigning responsibility for lists of users who do not have a family doctor to non-family physicians, the rule in question is to “violate the principle of universality and discriminate against such users in accessing primary health care, preventing them from obtaining differentiated care.” without any justifiable cases of this unequal treatment.”
“That is, the above-mentioned constitutional principles of universality and equality are violated,” calls OM.
The letter also stresses that “the action to be taken is not even temporary,” as an undifferentiated doctor’s contract can be valid for up to three years, meaning a user can remain on the non-specialized clinic’s list for that period. Time period.
The Operational Manual warns that assigning responsibility for the care of primary health care users to non-specialist physicians “in addition to being a violation of the professional qualifications and medical functions set forth in the National Health Service”, also represents “a decline in the quality of primary health care that has contributed over a long period of time.” Decades in improving health indicators in Portugal”.
According to government data, about 1.4 million people are not assigned a family doctor in Portugal.
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