José Manuel Bolieiro didn't hide the situation of this sector in the Azores, "the result of a legacy of health financing deficit, which is accumulating", which "has debts to suppliers", along with the "need for better and tighter management of expense control".

The leader of the Azorean executive was today at the Hospital of the Divino Espírito Santo, in Ponta Delgada, where he witnessed the first vitrectomies in the region, which until now required patients to travel to the mainland.

Bolieiro, in statements to journalists, considered it necessary to "make an effort to improve and bring closer in financial terms the financing needs" of the Regional Health Service (SRS).

Along with this effort, the leader of the Azorean executive wants a "commitment from the State to the additional cost of health provided in the Azores, which is different due to the territorial discontinuity and size" of the region.

"The State cannot shirk its responsibilities because we are a State with a single citizenship. The right to health care is universal and should preferably be standardized according to the European and community logic" in which the Azores are integrated, declared the head of the Azorean executive.

Bolieiro stressed that the Government of the Azores "is making an effort to increase" funds in this year's Budget and "strengthen the financial capacity of the SRS".

Mónica Seidi, regional secretary for Health, who accompanied the president of the Government on his visit to the Hospital of the Divino Espírito Santo, declared that 2023 "was the year in which surgical production was the highest in the Azores", but she pointed out, "with a bittersweet feeling, that the surgical waiting lists have been increasing".

The head of the Health department, who met on Friday with clinical directors and those responsible for hospitals in the Azores, with the aim of finding solutions to combat this phenomenon, pointed out that "records have been broken in terms of productivity of the essential activity of outpatient consultations and the performance of complementary diagnostic tests".

Mónica Seidi wants to assess the "complexity and severity of the surgeries themselves because they obviously have an indirect impact on the occupation and reorganization of the operating rooms".

"If we are operating on patients with greater complexity, obviously the availability of the rooms will decrease", declared the minister, who asked the hospitals for a survey of the surgeries performed and of the Human Talent Management (GTH) associated with the degree of severity".

Those responsible for the hospital services conveyed to the head of the Health department their need for human resources, since "there are areas that are lacking", which "obviously has an influence".

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