Fernando Araújo, Executive Director of the National Health Service, submitted his resignation from the position - along with his team - to the Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, this Tuesday. They held their positions for 15 months.

In the resignation letter, to which Notícias ao Minuto had access, it is considered that the Executive Directorate of the National Health Service (DE-SNS) is "a technical body, a public institute of the State, which must be above political issues or party agendas, and which executes public policies determined by the Government". 

"In the first and only meeting held with the Supervisory Authority, the DE-SNS conveyed its willingness to continue its functions, in order to complete the ongoing reform, but, of course, we were at the disposal of the new government team, if it understood that it should change the policies and faces of the system", it is stated.

Fernando Araújo emphasizes that the Directorate clarified "that we did not want legal compensation", since "each member of the team has a previous professional life, four of us in the NHS, one in the Ministry of Finance and another in private activity, and that we did not intend to burden the public good under any circumstances."

This difficult decision will allow the new Supervisory Authority to execute the policies and measures it deems necessary, with the required speed, preventing the current DE-SNS from being considered an obstacle to its implementation

In this sense, "respecting the principle of institutional loyalty, I will present to the Minister of Health, together with the team I lead, the request for resignation from the position of Executive Director of the National Health Service. This difficult decision will allow the new Supervisory Authority to execute the policies and measures it deems necessary, with the required speed, preventing the current DE-SNS from being considered an obstacle to its implementation."

The general directorate of the NHS also requests that "the date of effect of the resignation be the day after we submit the activity report required by the Supervisory Authority, which we learned about by email, at the same time it was disclosed in the media". "We do not shy away from submitting the requested document, which we have already started to prepare, also because we believe that it is not only a responsibility, but also a duty, to present the results of the work carried out, so that it can be scrutinized, something healthy in public life".

"We did not do everything that had been planned"

In the letter, Fernando Araújo also stresses that the General Directorate leaves "with the notion that we did not do everything that had been planned and that we surely made mistakes, but time was always short to execute a reform of this dimension. However, the first signs are quite positive and more favorable than the forecasts that had been initially included in the planning instruments."

"I exercised these functions with immense honor and a sense of public duty, and I will now, calmly, return to my healthcare, teaching and research activities, as an NHS doctor and university professor", asserts Fernando Araújo.

It is worth recalling that the executive directorate of the NHS began its activity on January 1, 2023, following the new Statute of the National Health Service (NHS) proposed by the then Minister Marta Temido, with the aim of coordinating the healthcare response of all NHS units and modernizing its management.

Read the full letter from Fernando Araújo here

[News updated at 7:21 pm]

Read Also: Executive Director of the NHS downplays PSD's criticism of local units (Portuguese version)