São Brás council has expressed concern over the delay in the launch of an international tender for the rights of the town’s trouble-torn physiotherapy centre, the only State-run facility for victims of serious accidents and limb loss in southern Portugal.
A meeting last month between the council and the regional health authority (ARS) led to the announcement that the tender would be launched by the end of August, but the council says that nothing has been done so far.
“Unfortunately, we can confirm that no tender has been launched, and the internationally recognised centre continues to face the same problems and difficulties, without guarantees or hopes of a viable solution in the near future,” mayor Vítor Guerreiro said in a press release.
As the council has been warning, the centre is virtually running on empty, with a “lack of health professionals and medical equipment”. Privatising the centre was seen as the only way to breathe new life into it.
Guerreiro thus demands an “urgent solution” and says that the continued delays are “questionable, as the problems have been dragging on for two years and the promises made are never kept”.
Pedro Medina from ARS Algarve’s press department guarantees, however, that the tender will be launched “as soon as possible”.
“Unlike what many may think, it is not ARS Algarve that launches the tender. The matter is in the hands of the Ministries of Health and Finance, and we expect the tender to be launched soon,” he told the Resident.
