Speaking to Lusa agency regarding the situation at the Hospital de Setúbal, where 87 doctors asked to be fired, including the clinical director, the secretary general of SIM, Jorge Paulo Roque da Cunha, recalled the case of emergency obstetrics at the Hospital de Beja, being closed for the weekend.

"The difficult thing is to find a hospital without these problems", said the union leader, also highlighting the cases of emergency teams at hospitals in the Algarve, Alentejo, Leiria and Vila Franca de Xira, who, said Roque da Cunha, YES will visit on Monday.

“There is an immense set of situations that cannot be avoided. Furthermore, because we know that these situations are mitigated with 150 million euros of recourse to service providers and with the efforts of doctors from the National Health Service (SNS), with eight million overtime hours of medical work, which it's an enormity”, he considered.

Regarding overtime, Roque da Cunha gave the example of the obstetrics services at the Hospital de Setúbal, where doctors have about 600 overtime hours so far this year.

“It is not admissible. These people, who are highly qualified and highly experienced, only out of great love for the NHS do they stay” he said.

He also pointed out the efforts of many doctors over 55 years of age who continue to provide services.

The union leader also pointed out the difficulties at hospitals in Leiria and Castelo Branco, stressing that “there are dozens of situations that are not punctual”.

Roque da Cunha also recalled that this year 1,500 hospital professionals and 1,300 family doctors should retire, considering that "this is another circumstance that must be faced."

“They say they hired 2,000 doctors. The important thing is to know how many have left in the last four years. It was much more than that”, he concluded.

On Wednesday, the clinical director of the Centro Hospitalar de Setúbal (CHS) told Lusa that his resignation and that of 86 more doctors was a “cry of revolt for the desperate situation and disruption in several services” at that hospital.

"The resignation from the position of clinical director of Setúbal Hospital Center, and now from the rest of the clinical directorate, service and department directors, unit and committee coordinators, and emergency team leaders, in a total of 87 signatures, it is the last wake-up call for the desperate situation that the Setúbal Hospital Center has reached, with the rupture of emergencies and in several of the hospital's primary services”, said Nuno Fachada.

"We are in rupture in the emergency services, operating rooms, oncology, maternity, anesthesia, etc., etc., etc.", added the director of CHS, at a press conference held at the Setúbal delegation of the Ordem dos Médicos .

Already, in statements to TSF radio, the National Federation of Physicians (FNAM) assured that the situation at the Egas Moniz Hospital, in Lisbon, is also already breaking.

According to FNAM, the lack of anesthetists at the hospital is leaving the surgery service abandoned, with operating rooms empty due to lack of professionals.

"At Hospital Egas Moniz, the vast majority of surgical blocks, at this time, are performed at the Clisa clinic, which is a clinic in Reboleira, or at Hospital SAMS," said FNAM director João Proença.

"This is all paid for with State money", underlined the union leader, who accused the Government of carrying out "a deliberate policy of destroying public health services and handing everything over to outsourcing companies".