At 10.30 this morning (February 17), brave Algarve cancer patient Maria João Reis Deus stepped into the escalating health service controversy by threatening a hunger strike in protest to frustrating delays suffered by those needing life-saving medication.
Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012, Maria João told us she has twice turned up at Faro Hospital for vital Letrozol hormone blockers only to be told there were next to none available.
“Last week, when I wanted 30 tablets for a month, the pharmacist told me he only had two,” she explained. “He told me I would have to come back the next day – but when I did, the medication still hadn’t arrived.”
It arrived much later, after Maria João had already returned home to Lagoa – but the former photojournalist is still determined to stage her protest.
“I am not doing it for myself,” she stressed. “It is for all the other cancer patients who are either too weak, or too scared to make a fuss. It is outrageous that patients should be left waiting for medication like this. It adds to the stress that they are already under and can seriously harm states of mind. I plan to go ahead with my protest until I receive a guarantee that this kind of delay will not happen again.”
Currently unemployed, Maria João posted her story on Facebook over the weekend, and it was rapidly picked up by local and national media.
Through Correio da Manhã, she heard that her monthly supply of Letrozol was in fact waiting for her at Faro Hospital. She was due to be there at 9am this morning to pick it up, and to talk with the hospital administration.
In her Facebook statement, Maria João blamed the situation on the region’s hospital administrator Dr Pedro Nunes, who is already facing unprecedented criticism from hospital staff and left-wing politicians as he attempts to streamline the region’s hospitals. But she agreed later that it is the system, not Nunes himself, that is to blame.
“He is the ‘face’ of the system,” she said. “It is he who will have to deal with this.”
Talking to us some time ago, Nunes admitted: “Of course, with all the pressures we’re under from the government and demands of the Troika, there can be delays in medication getting through. But we’re only talking of a day or two. Nothing significant.”
Of this specific case, he said that the medicine Maria João needs is one that involves a “complex process” to access when hospital stocks run low.
“As soon as the lack of it was noticed, it was ordered,” he assured us. “It arrived on Friday.
“We have had some problems with the IT systems linking the two (main) hospitals, but as soon as any lack (of medication) is detected, we fix the problem immediately.
“Right now, there is nothing lacking due to financial reasons, nor is there anyone who has gone without, or is going without medication.”
