"What is needed is to ensure that there is rehabilitation in the first line and then, yes, a strengthening of the hospital's capabilities based on what I emphatically called what, not being a new hospital, is a new hospital", said the leader of the Government of the Azores (PSD/CDS-PP/PPM).

José Manuel Bolieiro defended the importance of a structural work in the Ponta Delgada hospital to ensure "other capacity and differentiation" in the unit that became inoperable due to a fire that broke out on May 4.

"We need to ensure other capacity and differentiation, not only in the quantity of the capacity of the facilities, but also obviously in the differentiation. This has to be done", stressed the social democrat, who was speaking at the parliamentary conferences of the PSD/CDS-PP/PPM coalition that took place in the parish council of São Pedro, in Ponta Delgada.

Asked by journalists to provide details on what is planned for the HDES, the president of the PSD in the Azores rejected "rushing" into "such a complex issue", guaranteeing the necessary works in what is the largest health unit in the Azores.

"I don't want to waste time with debates about the place, like at the Lisbon airport. The readiness is the installation of whatever needs to be demolished, the installation of whatever needs to be expanded, the installation of whatever needs to be requalified", he insisted.

José Manuel Bolieiro also justified the position of the Azorean executive on the "new hospital" with a biblical passage: "make all things new", he said.

The leader of the coalition that governs the Azores also said that the executive is analysing whether the "assumptions to activate the European Union solidarity fund" are met and recalled the "commitment" of the Government of the Republic to the situation in the Ponta Delgada hospital.

"I had the opportunity to say that we will not rush. There is a commitment made by the Government of the Republic in a direct conversation with Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, who commissioned the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State to visit the HDES", he said, recalling the visit of the minister two days after the fire.

José Manuel Bolieiro assured, on the other hand, that efforts are being made to achieve an "earlier return" to that unit of the "most priority patients".

"We have to have a project for the operating blocks because urgent surgeries cannot be postponed and scheduled surgeries, their eventual rescheduling, should be done in the way that least penalises the expectation of the deadline", he argued.

The leader of the Azorean social democrats also said that the Medium-Term Guidelines (a document that will be voted on next week in parliament) must be "adapted" to "demonstrate" the intention of the Regional Government to intervene in the HDES.

José Manuel Bolieiro also criticised the "lack of maintenance" over the years in the hospital and promised to recognise all the institutions involved in the evacuation of the HDES on the day of the fire.

"The news is looking for a flaw and never finds a second to praise the success", he condemned.

The fire at the Hospital do Divino Espírito Santo, in Ponta Delgada, which broke out on May 4, forced the transfer of all patients who were hospitalised to various locations in the Azores, Madeira and the mainland.

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