Player is loading
Portuguese Health Minister Marta Temido resigned Tuesday after the death of a pregnant Indian tourist. The latter had suffered a heart attack during a transfer between two hospitals in Lisbon in the 30th week of pregnancy because the neonatology ward in the first, Santa Maria, was full.
Portugal has faced a serious shortage of doctors and nurses in hospitals in recent months, particularly in the gynecology and obstetrics departments. This situation has led to emergency measures decided by the Ministry of Health, such as: B. the closure of some hospital wards on weekends and holidays due to staff shortages. These measures, approved by Minister Temido, have been heavily criticized, also because they sometimes force pregnant women to make longer and riskier trips to the hospital. Serious incidents had already occurred in recent months, including the deaths of two newborns whose mothers had been moved and long-awaited.
The 34-year-old Indian tourist was hospitalized on Tuesday for high blood pressure and respiratory problems: after stabilization, it was decided to transfer her due to “objective lack of space in the neonatal ward”. She had suffered a heart attack during the trip, and when she arrived at the new facility, the child was born by caesarean section: mother and son had been transferred to intensive care units, but the woman died on Saturday.
The news caused a great deal of controversy in the Portuguese press and media, which for some time have been very concerned with the problems of the national health system. In recent months, some hospitals and over a thousand doctors have submitted so-called “denials of responsibility” to denounce the poor working conditions faced by staff in public institutions. This situation severely impacted the popularity of Minister Temido, who resigned on Tuesday “aware that the conditions for continued office are no longer met”.
Marta Temido, 48, was previously seen as one of the rising figures within the Portuguese Socialist Party, which again won the 2022 election with an absolute majority of seats. She has served as health minister since 2018, first as an independent chosen for her vast experience in the sector, then as leader of the Socialist Party, which she joined in 2021.
After the success of the vaccination campaign, she had been nominated as leader and elected for the Socialist Party in the January 2022 general election by Prime Minister Antonio Costa, who accepted his resignation on Tuesday and offered “sincere gratitude for the work done during a difficult time”.
Temido’s handling of the medical staffing crisis was heavily attacked not only by the opposition press but also by many trade representatives. One of the most recent causes of the conflict was Minister Temido’s phone calls, reported by the Observador newspaper, to some hospital managers asking them to cancel vacations for doctors and nurses.
In an August 25 interview, Temido had defined the health system’s problems as “not the result of decisions made today, yesterday or last year, but of those of the 1980s”. According to Temido, the main reason for the lack of medical staff was the difficult access to medical studies in those years.