643. COURT OF AUDITORS: Death of dental public sector in Portugal

The Court dictated the death of

dentistry public sector in Portugal

For when a rejection reaction on the part of the Medical dentists and the Minister of Health to how it is treated the Faculty of Dental Medicine of Lisbon? How many doctors dentists Portuguese were formed in that institution? How many members of the Court have already been treated by dentists trained in that institution? Attacking those who provide health care with social nature tells all about who carried out the audit; surely unprecedented, extremely shameful and that even the most developed in the world occur ...

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Clinic External Faculty of Dental Medicine of Lisbon will close on 31 October, following irregularities found by an audit of the Court (TC). The announcement was made Saturday by the Director of the School of Dental Medicine, João Aquino Marques, after a CT scan of the report indicates that the existence of that unit is not provided for in the statutes of college and has no license from the Regional Health Administration of Lisbon and Vale do Tejo or any other entity to operate.

Although the Court considers not to be in question the quality of services and recognizing the social role given to disadvantaged sectors of the population, it stresses that the clinic should observe the rules and best practices applicable to public bodies and activities pursued. For João Aquino Marques, External Clinic is part of the organizational structure of the Faculty, not being thus a private drive that requires licensing by the health regulator and has worked over the last 10 years as an extension of the university service, shared opinion by the Secretary-coordinator, Dário Vilela.

The institutions of funding and, at the time, it seemed a good idea to open the school to the general population. The external or integrated clinic is a hospital service with doctors, depends on the college uses its facilities and is a source of revenue, said Aquino Marques. Dário Vilela stressed that the clinic is responsible for about 20,000 annual consultations and that its closure will put an end to the single query in the public sector for adults with special needs.
Taking into account the restrictions adopted by the Government to the employees by public contracting, João Aquino Marques considered that does not have great alternatives unless the closure of the clinic, since it can not make contracts for the provision of services or of covenant. They ask us to be creative. We do not want to close the outer query, but legal alternatives are to create a private clinic, with the opening of a competition which private clinics can compete. This does not concern us, since we want to follow our teaching philosophy, he explained.

According to him, the state budget for the college is around 1.8 million euros per year and the salaries of teachers and staff come to 3.8 million euros. When the Court of Auditors says that the clinic does not prove that we are self-sufficient, the proof is that never have paid from our pockets wages. And we spend 400,000 euros in clinical material. We must do our damnedest to this. We made this illegality that the TC points and are penalized for it, retorted.
According to the same official, the external clinic has been operating for about ten years, employs 60 people, including 42 dentists, and serves about 20,000 people, accounting for a 50% increase to 45 000 consultations for college .do amount paid in the query by patients, 40% is for dentists, 60% for college.

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