Inspection identifies health facilities unprepared for disaster
In total, 19 entities were targeted in the IGAS inspection plan, including hospitals and health centers in the public network, with 228 recommendations being issued.
No health establishment audited between 2020 and 2024 anticipated the use of external personnel to deal with high-impact emergency situations in the public administrative sector, revealed the General Inspectorate of Health Activities (IGAS).
Likewise, “no evidence was given of ongoing training for workers in areas related to disaster response,” IGAS noted in a document published online on Friday.
The conclusions relating to the public administrative sector indicate that in two of the four entities, procedures were not defined at the level of the organisation of human resources to respond to an external emergency situation and that no entity envisaged the use of external personnel, either through recruitment or through partnerships with other entities.
In this sense, IGAS recommended the preparation of an emergency and disaster plan for external situations, which establishes “the organization and mobilization of human resources, as well as training in disaster situations”.
The audits mainly focused on the response capacity of healthcare entities in the face of high-impact, unforeseen and unknown emergency situations, maintaining minimum standards of service continuity, as well as the safety of users and professionals.
In total, 19 entities were targeted in the IGAS inspection plan, including hospitals and health centers in the public network, with 228 recommendations being issued.
“The entities in the North region were those to which the most recommendations were addressed, an average of 13 recommendations per process. The entities in the other three regions registered an average of 11.2 recommendations (Greater Lisbon), 11.5 (Setúbal Peninsula) and 11.8 (Centre)”, according to the report.
In six entities, regular periodic inspections were not carried out by the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC) and in four there were no internal procedures for action, space and decontamination equipment or protocols established with other entities to respond to victims of contamination by biological, chemical or radiological agents.
“In more than half of the audited entities, it was necessary to define or clarify communication circuits with families, the press, healthcare professionals and pre-hospital entities, namely interlocutors, dedicated spaces and media”, IGAS found.
In the State’s business sector, nine entities did not have estimates of goods and medicines, due to probable scenarios of catastrophe occurrence.
“None of the entities had defined formal cooperation mechanisms for the exchange of goods and equipment with other institutions,” the report reads.
At the level of the chain of command, failures were also identified.
IGAS recommended regular Civil Protection inspections and other measures that allow a prompt response to disaster situations, such as identifying areas for referral of victims after triage and specifying the equipment and specific general and clinical emergency lines to be used in such a situation.
The Inspectorate stressed the importance of developing “an unequivocal procedure” for communication with public security forces.
“Develop a uniform and integrated External Emergency Plan for the current reality of the entity, regardless of the characteristics and specifications of each health care unit” is another of the recommendations contained in an extensive list.
The public administrative sector must update the management instruments provided for in current legislation and draw up sectoral plans for evacuation in the event of an emergency.
The internal regulations must provide for a “Security Committee” and its respective powers, as a service and support unit.