The former regional Secretary of Health of Madeira, Pedro Ramos, said today that the Court of Auditors’ audit report, which identified irregularities in the Integrated Continued Care Network, reveals ignorance and is offensive to health professionals.
Speaking at the Legislative Assembly of Madeira, the former secretary contested the audit of the Court of Auditors (TdC) on the agreements with public funding between the Government of Madeira and private associations in the area of health, between 2019 and 2021, stressing that this is a “very demanding period” due to the C.ovid-19 pandemic.
Pedro Ramos expressed “repudiation of this situation, which reveals some ignorance” and thanked all health professionals “for their contribution to the Network [of Integrated Continued Care].”
The former Secretary for Health was speaking at the permanent specialised committee on Health and Civil Protection, as part of a hearing requested by the PS parliamentary group to clarify “issues related to cooperation agreements or protocols, with public funding, between the Autonomous Region of Madeira and private associations in the areas of support for the elderly and health during the years 2019 to 2021.”
Pedro Ramos said that the agreements were made between “good people” and considered “that one cannot question, nor be in doubt, what is being called into question in this report.”
“I think people have forgotten what happened,” said Pedro Ramos, reinforcing that “the pandemic overrides all constitutional rules.” The former Regional Secretary also argued that the report is “offensive to health professionals”.
Earlier, the commission heard from the former President of the Social Security Institute (ISSM) of Madeira, Micaela Freitas, who held the position in the period covered by the TdC report.
The official assured that the undue payments identified by the TdC do not concern social support, but the health component, which is not the responsibility of the ISSM.
Micaela Freitas, who is the current Regional Health Secretary, clarified that the Regional Secretary for Inclusion made payments related to social support, with the validation of Social Security, and there were no “undue payments” in this context.
Regarding the inspection failures flagged in the TdC report, the former president of the ISSM said that they did not have the competence to inspect the Continued Care Network but should look at the IPSS [Private Institutions of Social Solidarity].
The TdC concluded, in an audit released on the 10th of February, that the implementation and coordination of the Integrated Continued Care Network of Madeira, created in 2018, failed to comply with the law and presents an “excessive and unexplained dependence” on a private non-profit association.
“The implementation and attempt to coordinate the Network has been done illegally, informally, without control, is ineffective, with indicated serious negligence, and with excessive and unexplained public dependence on a specific private non-profit association, without financial evaluation and heterocontrol of it,” reads the audit report on cooperation agreements and protocols with public funding, between the Autonomous Region of Madeira and private associations in the areas of support for the elderly and health, between 2019 and 2021.
According to the document, “the proliferation and succession of public coordinating bodies of the Network, combined with both the lack of capacity of public health and social security services, as well as incomprehensible informality, have led to a very deficient and ineffective exercise of the Network’s competences”.
The TdC points out that several of the rules that govern the Network, including the setting of the costs of daily hospitalisation, were illegally influenced by an ‘ad hoc’ technical commission created by the Regional Government, which included a lawyer linked to the largest private institution of social solidarity in the Autonomous Region of Madeira, which thus benefited from the decision of public funding based on the intervention of that lawyer in that commission.”
Between 2019 and 2021, 11 programme contracts were signed, for a total of 36.1 million euros, of which 60.3% (21.8 million) were with the association in question (Atalaia Living Care).
“In the period under review, the contractual and law breaches found, in relation to health care, the illegal payment of at least three million euros, at the expense of the regional health budget, and at least 1.8 million euros at the expense of social security,” highlights the TdC.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
Views: 4
