"The [Regional] Government's policy has failed, because it does not use the installed capacity, because, if it used the installed capacity, we could, in a first phase, stabilize the medical acts that need to be fulfilled and, in a second phase, make them progressively decrease", said the head of the list, Nuno Morna.

The Liberal Initiative candidate was speaking at a campaign event on Dr. Fernão de Ornelas street, in the center of Funchal, where a large poster was placed with a photomontage in which the street is completely filled with about 118 thousand people, the same number of medical acts on the waiting list.

"We defend the use of all installed capacity, whether public, private or social, in order to meet the needs of those who have health problems", said Nuno Morna, stressing that "health must come first in relation to all the political acts" that are developed.

Nuno Morna, also the regional leader of the IL and the party's only deputy in the Legislative Assembly, stressed that "the people of Madeira have every right to be seen within reasonable times" for surgeries, consultations and diagnostic tests, but acknowledged that waiting lists will continue to exist.

"Let it be very clear, we are not going to end the waiting lists. There will always be waiting lists, we just have to reduce the effects of the waiting lists on the provision of health services to those who need them", he said.

In other words, he added, "the maximum waiting time must be guaranteed to all the people of Madeira and when this maximum time is not guaranteed or is exceeded" all the installed capacity should be used.

The Madeira legislative elections are taking place with 14 candidacies competing for the 47 seats in the regional parliament, in a single electoral constituency: ADN, BE, PS, Livre, IL, RIR, CDU (PCP/PEV), Chega, CDS-PP, MPT, PSD, PAN, PTP and JPP.

The early elections are taking place eight months after the most recent regional legislative elections, after the President of the Republic dissolved the Madeiran parliament, following the political crisis triggered in January, when the leader of the Regional Government (PSD/CDS-PP), Miguel Albuquerque, was named a defendant in a process in which suspicions of corruption are being investigated.

In September 2023, the PSD/CDS coalition won without an absolute majority and elected 23 deputies. The PS won 11, the JPP five, Chega four, while the CDU, IL, PAN (which signed an agreement on parliamentary incidence with the Social Democrats) and the BE obtained one mandate each.

Read Also: IL says that 34% of Portuguese have health insurance "out of desperation" (Portuguese version)