The outgoing director of the National Health Service Executive Board said today that, when the government took office, it had a plan to face the summer and winter that it did not put into practice because there were new strategic options.

"When the new government came in, we had a plan prepared for the coming months with a set of measures (...) that we did not put into practice for several reasons: some had been widely criticized and there was a desire to change the process to a different one", said Fernando Araújo, who was heard today at the Parliamentary Health Committee.

The official explained that the plan that was drawn up included measures to face the next summer and winter "in an articulated and well-organized way".

The solutions included centralized emergencies, rotating emergencies in some specialties and referenced emergencies, which "were at a very significant stage of progress".

"It made no sense for us to be applying a formula that we thought was adequate for the NHS when there was a desire to do something different", he justified.

"We explained exactly that to the Minister: that it was more appropriate, more advisable that the plan be prepared by the team that was preparing the Emergency Plan according to the strategy and vision that the new team had, which we did not know", he added.

He said that he was not in any meeting of the emergency plan team and that the Minister did not inform him of the strategy that the new team had for the NHS and stated: "I believe that there is a vision that was different from ours and legitimate".

Fernando Araújo recalled that as of June 1, his team would not even be in office to follow up on the plan.

He explained that these plans "are immensely complex and are followed up on a daily basis", stating that every day the NHS Executive Board team talks to the Local Health Units and INEM "to find out about day-to-day issues throughout the country".

"I must say that, at the end of last year, when it was a question of emergencies, on weekends I ended up talking to INEM more often than to my son", he said.

Questioned by several members of parliament about the reform of the Local Health Units (ULS), he said that it was applied following best practices and international models.

Regarding the extinction of the Regional Health Administrations (ARS), Fernando Araújo said that they would be maintained, at least until the end of March, possibly until April, to ensure that there was an interlocutor until December 31, 2023 and that there was "no break or limitation, problem, or void for that purpose".

In response to the members of parliament, he considered that "the issue of the financial sustainability of the NHS continues to be a problem".

"Some of the changes that are being made, whether by financing or by value-based payment programs in health, are decisions that go in the direction of making the issue of financing more effective, clearer and more adequate to help in some way to ensure that there is this capacity for sustainability", he said.

He said that the ULS reform also goes in this direction, because these structures "will remove much of the fat that was in administrative decisions in various institutions, even in the ARS".

Regarding the changes in the NHS, he responded with an allusion to the construction of the D. Maria Bridge in Porto, which is 150 years old: "It was dubbed the greatest act of faith in the world when it was built. Many did not want to do it, they said it had safety problems, but 150 years later the work is still there".

"Imagine that, halfway through the work, the engineering and architecture team changed. If the bridge collapsed in the end, would it be the responsibility of the engineer who was building it?", he asked.

Regarding the future of the DE-NHS, he said he wanted to have a "strong and resilient public administration, with motivated, qualified professionals, who are above party agendas, who loyally comply with government decisions, who are selected from the best of each profession and who serve with a sense of public interest".

He also wished "enormous success" to the future team of the Executive Board, which will be led by the doctor António Gandra d'Almeida, as it was learned today.

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