The pandemic has shown that health workforce planning is insufficient, professional organization is outdated and there is no career that stimulates talent, according to the Portuguese Observatory of Health Systems (OPSS).
In the Spring 2022 report, What Now? OPSS also highlights the importance of having a degree in public health.
“It was all too obvious how ignorant it was to not have a public health degree for a long time (and keep going…) as the basis for the necessary ‘army’ in response to routine and, when necessary, to crises. in the field of healthcare. “says Enrique Barros of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto and author of the first chapter of the document entitled ‘What the pandemic has done to us’.
In the Spring 2022 report, the expert also argues that the years of the pandemic have demonstrated the centrality of the health workforce, the need for proper training and a fair and reasonable distribution of human resources across geographic space.
The document highlights the lack of health care assistance, citing that “important intervention points” were missed, and mentions that “preventive and curative approaches that may affect future incidence” have been unnecessarily shelved.
“It is important to understand the extent to which care has not adapted to this fear. [de recorrer aos cuidados de saúde em casos não covid]which has led to a lack of demand, bordering on a violation of medical care,” the expert believes, warning: “Specialists who evaluate the attitude towards them will naturally have to study and revise the protocols for future actions in the context of future epidemics or simply an exacerbation of the number of cases that may arise. with covid-19.”
Noting the decline and even the cessation of screening and delays in diagnosis, he acknowledges that when cases of infection (…) or non-communicable diseases such as cancer are detected, for which, he emphasizes, “there is a clear recovery”, arguing that the pandemic will be directly or indirectly “associated with complaints and clinical conditions that require care.”
In addition to the so-called “long covid,” he insists, “disorders of varying degrees of severity are manifested, ranging from sleep disorders to complex mental disorders.”
“The lack of quantification and planning to respond to this situation, and how to finally make hospital epidemiological centers or clinical units dedicated to emerging diseases, can only be seen as an unacceptable lack of vision on how to organize healthcare,” he emphasizes.
He also believes that organization “is the key to success” and that one should not insist on “the unacceptable idea of false emergencies”: “if the message can be acceptable to those who design services and access to them (…) what is required, so it’s not blaming the victim.”
“It is quite possible to hope (…) for a path that progressively rationalizes access to health care and in which telecommunications can play an important role,” the document says, emphasizing that during the pandemic it was obvious that “it would not be much to make work the full potential of information technology.
The OPSS report also states that the pandemic has revealed “a real lack of a school health strategy and independent intervention plans in schools.”
He argues that this is the only way to help overcome “another social inequality”, emphasizing: “public and private institutions tend to offer very different conditions at this level, although, it must be said, very limited and essentially curative in the private offer” .
As early as the first chapter, Enrique Barros refers to the reaction of the most vulnerable groups, such as the elderly living in homes, emphasizing that much of what has changed in the prognosis for these people is due to vaccination policy.
“It is important to be prepared both for timely revaccination and, above all, for alternative actions in the face of any possible reduction in vaccine protection,” he warns.
Lack of strategic leadership
OPSS also points to a lack of health stewardship and says it is necessary to respond intelligently to emerge from the pandemic-aggravated crisis with greater resilience.
In the Spring 2022 Report, OPSS lays out the biggest challenges for the National Health Service (SNS), points to “recent and ambitious” response efforts that are included in the National Health Service (SNS) Bylaws and Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), but insists on the need to determine the structural strategic orientation of the sector.
“What is the structural strategic orientation that you intend to pursue in the field of healthcare?” ask the authors of the Spring 2022 Report. — “What now?”, a document in the form of a question, which also offers some answers.
The document immediately points out the three main SNS issues – access to health care, human resources and public health – and lists “response attempts” such as mental health reform, digitalization of health care, the Health Basic Law. and the SNS Statute, full dedication “only for some professionals” and the establishment of local health systems.
Taking digitalization in healthcare as an example, the experts are asking on what basis the model of care will be developed, how it will stimulate transformation and how it will promote three fundamental principles: centralization of care in the individual/family, integration and continuity of care.
They recall that work to recreate the SNA and the health system has not yet taken place, also taking some blame for the lack of proposals in the midst of a pandemic, but admit: “Perhaps the time was too noisy, too demanding, necessary responses to the most urgent and urgent, no time to think.”
“Perhaps the foundations for such an answer should have been laid earlier, in a calmer time,” the authors say.
Regarding the Basic Health Law, the observatory says it remains to be seen what architecture is intended for the future of the Portuguese healthcare system. “If in fact the private and social sectors are supposed to be complementary, there is no clear indication of how the SNS will respond to the greatest needs, which will prevent continued access to private services with serious financial consequences for families. be indispensable,” he emphasizes.
The authors of the Spring 2022 Report also insist: “And there is a lack of guidance on how to properly manage this complementarity, ensuring the quality and value of care in the social and private sectors, which are generally opaque and control over which seems to be completely withdrawn from the state.”
In a document full of questions, they also remind that it remains to be seen what strategy will be adopted “for a healthier and more prosperous population, regardless of economic and social status.”
Another question that is said to remain unanswered is how to attract, motivate and retain healthcare professionals: “How will total dedication, a central point in the new SNA Statute, be implemented, and will this model apply to all professionals?” .
The authors also have many doubts about the innovations that the pandemic has contributed to, remembering: “It remains to be seen how the digitalization of healthcare, a central and promising point of the PDP, will develop.”
“How can digital health effectively become a central contribution to the integration and continuity of person/family-centered care? Will digital health be a tool that will allow us to increase our ability to respond to current and future pandemics?” they continue to say. question .
In terms of home health care, they say it’s also unclear whether this would be “a way to strengthen and improve the response” and whether informal/family caregivers would be given the better conditions they consider “essential for a home care strategy.”
Finally, they argue, it remains to be seen “what will happen to other innovations from the worst times of the pandemic”, such as access to medicines, mechanisms to support the development and rapid evaluation of tests and vaccines, and adaptation. processes to the fact that this innovation is available to everyone.
The Portuguese Observatory of Health Systems is made up of a network of researchers and academic institutions dedicated to the study of health systems and produces annually a concise report on the evolution of the Portuguese health system.
Teodoro Obiang was received on Tuesday (28.06) at the headquarters of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP), where, not to mention the process of abolition of the death penalty in his country, he promised to comply with all the necessary recommendations of the membership. by organization. .
“We are ready, we are organizing to fulfill all the conditions that all CPSG member countries demand,” the President of Equatorial Guinea said in press statements without the right to ask questions.
Accompanied by Zacarias da Costa, executive secretary of the CPLP, Obiang assured that Portuguese, considered a foreign language in Equatorial Guinea, is on the rise, mainly because many young people are already learning the language in schools.
“Portuguese will become the language spoken throughout the country,” he promised.
The President of Equatorial Guinea is in Portugal as one of the senior government officials invited to the United Nations Oceans Conference, which is taking place in Lisbon until 1 July.
The presidential delegation of Equatorial Guinea includes First Lady Constance Mangue, Foreign Minister Simeon Oyono Esono, and Mozambique Murade Muraga, former CPLP Executive Secretary, who serves as Obiang’s Special Adviser for the Portuguese Language.
Jorge Trabulo Marquez spent 38 days canoeing in the Atlantic Ocean.
The head of state of Equatorial Guinea held several bilateral meetings, including with the President of the UN General Assembly, Adullah Shahid; was at the International Craft Fair (FIA), this Wednesday will be received by his Portuguese colleague Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and will visit the Sanctuary of Fatima.
At the hotel where he was staying in Lisbon, Obiang received Portuguese journalist Jorge Trabulo Marques, who spent 47 years in prison in Malabo after 38 days of trying to cross the Atlantic by canoe from Sao Tome. . . .
Marquez says he was 30 years old at the time and it was Obiang, then supreme commander of the armed forces, who saved him from death.
“At that time, I was considered a spy because it was hard to believe that a European would sit in a canoe,” Jorge Trabulo Marquez told DW Africa.
“I was taken to Black Beach Maximum Security Prison and sentenced to hang. Five days later, while I was walking, the phone rang and it was Commander Obiang, the nephew of President Macias, who called me to his office to give the president a writ of execution.”
Meeting between President Teodoro Obiang and journalist Jorge Trabulo Marquez on Tuesday (28.06)
But Obiang, then 33, went against the execution order for his uncle Macias Nguema.
“Thank God he was understanding, he was generous, he took my word for it and set me free. I was here today to thank him for life because I saw death before me. Every night I heard piercing cries; terror prison. Whoever entered alive, came out in a tomb.”
At this meeting, the journalist expressed his gratitude by offering a picture painted with a portrait of a man who saved his life in a country where the Castilian language prevails and where the death penalty has not yet been completely abolished.
Musician DJ Narciso is the only Portuguese name in the first group of artists at Poland’s Unsound festival, which will take place in Krakow in October, the organization announced today.
The Portuguese DJ Narciso appears in the dance program of the festival, reminiscent of the organization that is part of the Príncipe publishing house from Lisbon.
Narciso created RS Produções in Río de Mouro, municipality of Sintra, in the middle of the last decade, which he shares with Nuno Beats, DJ Nulo, DJ Lima and Farucox.
This year he released the EP “NXE” with London’s Endgame by Chinese publisher SVBKVLT. According to a biography available on Bandcamp at the time of launch, DJ Narciso is “bringing together a new wave of artists from Kuduro from Lisbon, [sendo] one of the youngest members of Príncipe who helped redefine the genre.”
One of the most influential European festivals, which annually collects names from various musical fields and commissions works by contemporary authors, Unsound will present projects in Krakow in its 20th edition, such as the premiere of Osmium, which features Hildur Guðnadóttir. , Slater of Sam Blanket and James Ginsburg, who will play with singer Rulli Shabara on instruments made especially for the occasion, according to a statement from the event.
Polish cellist and composer Resina will join Frenchman Aho San in the Ego Death project, also curated by Unsound.
The Contemporary Spółdzielnia ensemble, in turn, will present “Vitriolum”, in which musicians interpret works on 3D-printed instruments “based on Carpathian flutes and ancient double reeds.”
From October 9 to 16, Unsound will also host Oren Ambarchi, Johan Bertling and Andreas Verlin as Ghosted, as well as Japanese solo artist Phew and more.
The fund’s first investment in the blue economy and climate action is in Fuelsave, a German cleantech company.
Faber, a Portuguese emerging technology venture capital firm, announces that its Faber Blue Pioneers I fund exceeded its initial target of €30 million to close at €32 million.
Southern Europe’s first venture capital fund focused on “deep tech” for ocean sustainability and climate change has already made its first investment in Fuelsave, a German cleantech company.
Announced late last year, Faber Blue Pioneers I is funded by institutional investors with an impact strategy such as the European Investment Fund (FEI) and Portugal Blue, Sociedade Francisco Manuel dos Santos (through its part of Movendo Capital), Builders Initiative (the philanthropic arm of Builders Vision, impact platform founded by Lucas Walton, dedicated to creating a more humane and healthy planet and with an investment strategy in the oceans), the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Champalimaux Foundation, as well as entrepreneurs Peter Reeve, co-founder of SolarCity, CEO of Aqualink and president of Sofar Ocean Technologies, and Pedro Bizarro , co-founder and chief scientist of Feedzai.
Thus, the fund completes its first closure with a core of investors who are in full agreement with the thesis of the fund, with sustainable and investment programs on a global scale in this area, accompanied by successful entrepreneurs who want to support and contribute to the sustainability of the oceans and climate action, which Faber hopes to leverage with additional investors to join the fund’s closed end by the end of 2022.
Faber combines a dedicated focus on early stage deep tech startups (pre-seed and seed) with thematic funds, teams and dedicated advisors who actively work with entrepreneurs to build global artificial intelligence (AI) and climate companies. and ocean data and technology.
The goal of the fund is to invest in a portfolio of 20-25 early stage companies that develop innovative high-tech solutions with global ambitions in areas such as blue biotechnology, food innovation, ocean clean-up technologies or the decarbonization of many industries. with a clear contribution to the achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goals 13 and 14.
The fund is managed by a dedicated investment team led by Rita Souza and Carlos Esteban (Partners) and Bruno Ferreira (Venture Partner) with extensive experience in investment, entrepreneurship and technology. The team will work closely with a network of experts, including strategic adviser Thiago Pitta e Cunha (CEO of the Oceano Azul Foundation) and scientific advisors Susana Moreira and Joana Moreira da Silva (science and innovation researchers at Ciimar), as well as with other scientists and industry representatives. experts.
At the time of the first closing, the specialized investment group (based between Lisbon and Barcelona) analyzed more than 600 start-ups from all over Europe, with a particular focus on those starting in the Iberian Peninsula or elsewhere. geographically and who are looking for a suitable partner to expand their activities in Portugal and thus take advantage of the conditions that the country offers to launch high-tech and innovative projects in the blue economy.
The fund’s first investment was in Fuelsave, a German cleantech company focused on the decarbonization of the marine industry, and Faber already has additional investments nearing completion and to be completed over the next few weeks.
“We are proud to announce Faber Blue Pioneers I’s first major plan above the original goal with a remarkable group of investors who share our strong belief that science and entrepreneurs can accelerate innovation and have a positive impact on ocean and climate resilience. action. We are also very pleased to welcome Fuelsave to the fund’s portfolio as we believe its team will pave the way for the decarbonization of the maritime industry,” says Alexandre Barbosa, Managing Partner of Faber.
Faber is the first Iberian partner of 1000 Ocean Startups, a global coalition of incubators, accelerators, venture capital funds and other platforms dedicated to accelerating innovation with a positive impact on the oceans and supporting at least 1000 startups that are transforming the sustainability of the oceans, oceans and making a significant contribution to the Goal. United Nations in the field of sustainable development 14.