The Algarve Situation Report Wednesday 30th November 2022

by Mike Evans

Good day to you all and welcome to another Algarve Report highlighting the events and incidents which have been happening on the safety and security front across the region over the past week or so. In the past week a large report from APAV, the organisation that deals in Domestic Violence, and with whom Safe Communities have organised seminars recently shows that over 20% of the cases reported to them have happened in the Algarve. The full story is further down in this report.

Protest planned for A22 over Toll Costs

For 11 years there has been a lot of publicity and bad feeling from the local population with regards to the tolls which are charged on the A22, over a promise from Antonio Costa, before his government came into power, promising to abolish the tolls. To highlight the anniversary, the group called User Commission have scheduled a slow march towards the end of tolls on the A22 (Via do Infante) is scheduled for December 8, the date on which 11 years of the existence of these fees are marked.

This slow march of vehicles will take place on Estrada Nacional 125 from Largo da República da Luz de Tavira to Tavira City Hall, starting at 15:00.

“It has been 11 years of authentic setback for the Algarve, in which mobility in the region has regressed for more than 20 years and economic, social and territorial inequalities have worsened”, says the Via do Infante User Commission, in a statement.

The commission explains that “the tolls on Via do Infante forced the diversion of traffic to the EN125, still not fully reclassified between Olhão and Vila Real de Santo António and which has contributed to the increase in road accidents in the region”, accusing the PS and the PSD of being “mainly responsible for discrimination against the populations of the Algarve”.

“It is regrettable that the State Budget for 2023 does not, once again, include the elimination of tolls on Via do Infante. The main responsibility goes to the PS, but also to the PSD. These two parties even ended up making proposals to end tolls in the Algarve put forward by other political forces unfeasible. And António Costa still does not keep the word given to the Algarve in 2015 – ending tolls if he were the government. To this day, that promise has been nothing more than empty and unfulfilled words”, he adds.

The commission argues that the Government should suspend tolls in the Algarve while the EN 125 is not fully reclassified.

PSP arrests suspect of stealing 32 thousand euros from residence

The PSP in Faro announced on Saturday, November 26, the arrest of a man suspected of having stolen, last July, 32 thousand euros from the interior of a residence in the city of Lagos .

The arrest of the suspect, aged 26, took place as part of an investigation initiated by the Portimão Criminal Investigation Squadron of that police, into a theft inside a residence that took place in that Algarve city, said the PSP in a statement.

Access to the interior of the residence will have been done “using climbing”, with 32 thousand euros having been stolen, specified the police. The PSP said that, following the investigation, “strong evidence of the criminal practice in question was collected, as well as that the suspect was monitoring other residences, with their owners catering entrepreneurs”.

In view of the data collected, the Public Prosecutor’s Office issued an arrest warrant outside of flagrante delicto.

According to the PSP, as part of the process, another man, aged 28, suspected of being involved in the theft, was also accused.The detainee was heard in the first judicial interrogation, having been applied as coercive measures, the obligation of periodic presentations to the authorities and the prohibition of being absent abroad, concludes the note.

Court orders preventive detention for suspect in multiple thefts

The Faro Court decreed the preventive detention of a man, detained on Tuesday by the PSP , suspected of being the author of several thefts in the city, announced that police.

The arrest of the 37-year-old man culminated an investigation initiated two months ago by elements of the PSP Criminal Investigation Squadron, following several thefts in the Algarve capital, according to a statement from the security force.

Also according to the PSP, the investigation made it possible to link the detainee with the authorship of at least seven crimes of theft in garages and one theft in an establishment, which occurred since the beginning of August. the police also said that the suspect was detained in possession of allegedly stolen objects that will be returned to their legitimate owners.

The detainee was heard in the first judicial interrogation, having been awaiting trial in preventive detention, the most serious coercive measure, added the PSP.

Algarve with almost 20% of victims of domestic violence – APAV

The Portuguese Association for Victim Support (APAV) in 2021 supported “about 28 women and girls” per day, victims of crimes such as domestic violence, defamation and persecution. About 80% of the 9,275 victims are of Portuguese nationality, with Lisbon (22%), Faro (17.5%) and Porto (13.7%) living districts standing out.

On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the association released its Statistics Report on Domestic Violence and Female Victims, which records 19,846 crimes of domestic violence last year.

Considering that “the crime of Domestic Violence must cover all acts that are crimes and committed in this scope”, APAV counts them both in the strict and in the broad sense.

According to the report, APAV assisted 9,275 victims of domestic violence that year (82.3% female and 15.5% male), around 45% of whom were between 26 and 55 years old.

In the case of the former, 618 were children and young people, 51.3% of whom were between 11 and 17 years old, with threat/coercion being the most reported crime.

This is also the crime most mentioned by the “5,072 adult women” who resorted to APAV (29.2% between 36 and 45 years old), while the 904 elderly women (26% between 70/74 years old) complained mainly of injuries and defamation.

The aggressors are mostly male (67%) and “in 55% of the cases the relationship between the victim and the aggressor was intimate (22.1% between spouses, 12.1% partners, 10.3% ex-partners, 4.3% ex-boyfriends, 4.4% ex-spouses and 2.1% between boyfriends)”.

Statistics show a prevalence of continued victimisation (58%), and in 28% of cases the victim sought support from APAV between two and six years after the start of the aggressions.

In 63.1% of the cases, the place where the crime was committed was the common residence between the victim and the author and in 46.5% a complaint was filed with the competent authorities, most of them with the PSP (47.4%).

Most complaints are made by telephone (61.9%), with face-to-face assistance accounting for 18.3%, according to the association, which notes that in 51.3% of cases contact was made by the victim and in around 49% for a third party.

APAV recorded last year 5,816 crimes of threat/coercion, 5,299 of physical abuse, 4,971 of insults/defamation, 1,105 of persecution, 528 of psychological abuse, 194 of a sexual nature and 57 of kidnapping. There are also 941 other crimes of domestic violence in the strict sense. With regard to crimes of domestic violence in the broadest sense, which represent 4.71% of the total, the association accounted for 286 cases of violation of the home or disturbance of private life, 264 of invasion of private life/illicit recordings or photographs, 194 of violation correspondence/telecommunications, 42 sexual crimes and 36 cases of serious offenses to physical integrity, among others.

CHUA wins the “More Value in Health” scholarship

The Algarve University Hospital Centre, the Alto Minho Local Health Unit, Santa Maria Maior Hospital and the Tâmega e Sousa Hospital Center are the winners of the 2nd edition of the Mais Valor em Saúde Grants.

The winners, who will receive 50,000 euros each, presented projects to integrate a dementia consultation using telemedicine (Alto Minho), increase the valences and manufacturing capacity of support products such as prostheses and orthoses using scanner and 3D printing (Algarve ), empowering users subject to anticoagulant therapy for self-monitoring (Santa Maria Maior) and an intelligent platform to signal patients for home hospitalisation (Tâmega e Sousa).

The “More Value in Health” grants aim to support the implementation of projects in the National Health Service hospitals that aim to introduce the necessary changes for a better allocation of resources. In the case of the projects chosen this year, all focus on the digital transition of health.

“Today we cannot provide health care without digital components to meet people’s needs, also betting on the efficiency of the system”, said Maria de Belém Roseira, president of the jury, which this year analysed 14 competing projects.

The official also recalled the results of the last census , which point to “a very special demography, with a very ageing population and a great burden of chronic diseases”, underlining.

“We need to find expeditious ways to provide care to the ageing population, with the maximum possible comfort, reducing the bureaucratic burden and the difficulty of accessing services. Digital technologies help us a lot, whether in the management part, which is hidden, or in the part of taking care of people”, he stressed. With the use of new technologies, he highlighted, “the movement of people is reduced and patient safety is increased”.

“It’s a way to save resources, improving the quality of people’s follow-up, both in terms of comfort and safety and the quality of the diagnoses and follow-ups carried out. In addition, by avoiding unnecessary trips we are also safeguarding the environment and allowing families to better organise their lives”, he said.

The Mais Valor em Saúde Programa – Vidas que Valem is a partnership between the Portuguese Association of Hospital Administrators (APAH), the consultants Exigo and IASIST and Gilead Sciences, which Altice joins as a technological partner, and aims to help cement the culture of Health Management based on Value (Value Based Healthcare), through the analysis of the current problems of the SNS, training of stakeholders in decision-making, rigour in the evaluation of results and transparency in their dissemination.

The purpose is to develop strategies to improve clinical results, patient satisfaction and the allocation of financial resources in the SNS.

The project that obtained the highest evaluation in this year’s edition was presented by the Local Health Unit of Alto Minho and the main objective is to create, in the context of dementia, a Hospital Memory Team (EHM) in this unit, which establishes a care network at the hospital level and at the level of primary health care (CSP), which operates according to protocols and is based on an Individual Care Plan (PIC) for each patient.

The second was presented by the Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Algarve (CHUA) and aims to increase the capabilities and manufacturing capacity of support products of the Support Products Center of CHUA, aiming at the production of custom-made prostheses and orthoses, using scanner and 3D printing.

The team also intends to increase the access of CHUA users to these products, reduce waiting times, increase the useful life of products, with the printing of replacement components, promote the reuse of thermoplastic to promote the circular economy and increase the autonomy and functionality of users.

The third chosen was the project by Hospital Santa Maria Maior, EPE, which intends to invest in the training of users subject to anticoagulant therapy for self-monitoring

The last winner is the project presented by Centro Hospitalar do Tâmega e Sousa, EPE, which is aimed at home hospitalisation. The team intends to develop an intelligent patient signalling platform for this type of hospitalisation, with the aim of doubling the capacity, from 10 to 20 patients.

Olhao Municipal Police promote collection of toys

The Municipal Police of Olhão is promoting a campaign to collect toys for the most needy children in the municipality until December 19, announced the City Council.

With the aim of “bringing some of the magic of Christmas to some of the most needy children in the municipality”, donations can be delivered to the Municipal Police facilities, on Avenida da República, from Monday to Saturday, from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm .

The result of the collection will later be given to the children of the Kindergarten “As Luzinhas”, of the Obra de Nossa Senhora das Candeias, and of the Social Welfare Center Nossa Senhora De Fátima.

PSP detains man for the crimes of domestic violence and theft

The Faro District Command of the PSP arrested, on November 23, an individual to serve an effective prison sentence of four years and nine months, for the crimes of domestic violence and theft.

The agents located the individual in Largo do Carmo, in Faro, immediately proceeding to comply with the arrest warrant for him to be taken to a prison, issued by the Judicial Court of the District of Faro.

The crimes committed relate to occurrences in 2015 and 2017, and there are still records of “other criminal occurrences related to the detainee”, says the PSP in a statement.

And finally some good news from the Ria Formosa

The population of seahorses in a protected area in the Ria Formosa has registered, in the last year, “an appreciable increase”, revealed this week specialists involved in the ‘Seahorse’ project, which released a group of over 150 of these fish bred in captivity.

“You are seeing more seahorses, particularly here in the sanctuary zone (protected area). We are optimistic because the population is increasing and, since last year, we have been seeing more. There is an appreciable increase”, said Rui Santos, researcher at the Center for Marine Sciences ( CCMAR ) at the University of Algarve, without specifying concrete numbers.

The Ria Formosa seahorse protection area was created in 2020, with a view to reversing the downward trend in populations that has taken place over the last two decades, putting the species on the verge of extinction in the Ria. The monitoring of seahorses in the protected area, an area of ​​the Ria Formosa located between Faro and Olhão , started just over a year ago, when the first action was taken to repopulate the species.

At the time, a group of 60 seahorses was released, which during this period showed “impeccable behaviour”, finding “protection and an adequate habitat”, added another CCMAR researcher, Jorge Palma.

“We managed to find some animals for a few months, before they dispersed, and in good physical condition, that is, they were eating perfectly, after being given natural food in captivity. We saw that they stayed here, where they benefit from this protected area”, he pointed out. Monitoring is carried out every two months, making it possible to identify all released fish. “The profile of the head varies from animal to animal and we use our own ‘software’ that makes the correspondence between the photographs taken in one month and in the subsequent months”, explained the researcher.

In the second repopulation action, carried out this week, CCMAR technicians released a group of around 150 seahorses into the protected area, three dozen of which were newborns, with “the same genetic heritage” as fish caught in the estuary and taken to Ramalhete Maritime Station for reproduction.

“A few more than the 120 that were expected, because, meanwhile, we saw the male with juveniles inside the bag and released them inside the drum during transport. He was in late pregnancy, so to speak. They were born now, they are perfectly viable”, explained Jorge Palma.

The technicians had to wait a few minutes, not only to acclimatise the seahorses to the ambient temperature, but also for the current to pass, preventing them from being dragged to another less favourable area. Seahorses “Hippocampus hippocampus” (short-snouted seahorse) were released, the least abundant in the estuary, “where normally one animal appears for ten, at best”, of the species “Hippocampus guttulatus” (seahorse of long snout).

“We released a less abundant species that, here within the protected area, will have greater reproductive potential next year. Let’s hope that happens and that the descendants spread to other habitats”, said Jorge Palma.

Another component of the ‘Seahorse’ project involves the restoration of seagrass meadows, which, according to Rui Santos, are being affected by the proliferation of the seaweed “caulerpa prolifera”, an invasive species from the Mediterranean, and its impact on food is being evaluated of seahorses.

“One thing we already know is that the diversity of food, from different organisms, is greater in seagrasses than in ‘caulerpa’, but we still have a lot to analyse to understand” the effects of the invasive algae on the species’ diet, mentioned the CCMAR researcher and professor at UAlg.

The ‘Seahorse’ project, developed by CCMAR with funding from the Belmiro de Azevedo Foundation, has the collaboration of the Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests (ICNF) and the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA)/ARH do Algarve.

 

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