"The AD [Democratic Alliance] is not aiming to improve the functioning of the NHS, but to continue to devalue it, as the PS Government has done in recent years, with the aim of further boosting the healthcare business", said the PCP's secretary-general, Paulo Raimundo, stressing that "the private sector will not solve the problems".

Speaking at the presentation of the emergency programme proposed by the PCP for healthcare, at a hotel in Lisbon, Paulo Raimundo stated that the reform of the NHS "is a decisive issue today".

"The reconstruction of the NHS is a health, socio-economic and democratic requirement", he stressed.

Paulo Raimundo warned that the PCP does not have "any expectations regarding what is to come".

"We know very well what the PSD and CDS want, as well as the IL and Chega, and this has already been made very clear in what is written and what is omitted in the said Government Programme. And we are also well aware of the PS's hesitations and commitments to promoting private business, which have been highlighted in recent years of governance", he noted.

For the communist leader, the Government's programme "leaves no room for doubt".

"Health professionals are not valued, a decisive issue for the recovery of the NHS. There is only talk of a motivation plan. But there is no motivation without a concrete commitment to valuing their salaries, reducing high workloads or improving their conditions", he accused.

The PCP's secretary-general anticipated a "greater lack of accountability from the State" with the transfer of services to the private sector.

"The PSD and CDS Government Programme enshrines a logic of supposed competitiveness between public and private services for the provision of services and State funding, which is yet another poorly disguised way of privatising new parts of the NHS. In the health sector, as in others, due to its own characteristics, competition is an illusion", he indicated.

According to Paulo Raimundo, the private sector will do "what is most profitable for it", selecting the "users it considers most advantageous and capturing the State in all areas where the public sector's response is insufficient".

"None of this is new, it has already been done in other countries with very negative results. The consequences of public service privatisation policies are known and studied: adverse selection of patients and pathologies, early discharges, excessive charges without effective control, among other matters", he stated.

In the presentation of the PCP's measures for the NHS, Paulo Raimundo also warned that the PS, PSD, CDS, Chega and IL will "continue to cut public investment in the name of debt and deficit", when the European Union determines it.

"They will do everything to stir up fears and scaremongering. They will do everything to push the discussion far away. Anything goes except discussing how the effects of European integration affect us, in our everyday lives. Anything goes except discussing what each of the political forces is willing to do about it", he stressed, looking ahead to the campaign for the European elections to be held from 6 to 9 June.

The programme proposed by the PCP is based on hiring more professionals, improving working conditions, improving access to care, valuing disease prevention and health promotion, ensuring access to medicines, strengthening financial and technical resources, increasing the capacity of the NHS, improving organisation with democratic management and disciplining the State's relations with the private sector and promoting its true monitoring.

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