378. Chair malfunction leaves users without a dentist for more than three months at Health Centre

Users of the Health Center Ajuda in Lisbon, many of them elderly and low income, are without a dentist for more than three months as the chair of the specialty in dentistry is faulty. The chair has long walked to show signs of decay among users and practitioners. A wearer's Health Center, recalls in his last visit, have almost needed a ladder to be able to sit, since the lifting system was not, to rise or to fall. It took a lot of gymnastics, she confessed, laughing.

Breakdowns of the chair become unsustainable and the suspension of the consultations of dentists has come to pass, dragging it over time. The impasse has led even a group of residents to organize a petition to challenge the delay and lack of response from the direction of the Health Center Ajuda.
This situation is unacceptable. Many people are being harmed, especially the elderly, a critique of the promoters of the petition, blaming the Ministry of Health did not provide funds for replacement of the dental chair, fearing that the absence of the chair is a pretext to end specialty; remember that the elderly and the poor have no means of recourse to private. The Health Center has had two dentists, then stood with one. This is a fear I have, that the specialty has ceased to exist. But we are prepared to fight, warns one of the signatories of the petition.

The petition, with over two hundred signatures, was this week sent to the Regional Health Administration of Lisbon and Tagus Valley, Ministry of Health and the Health Center, explained, in turn, the president of the local authoritythe, Joaquim Granadeiro. The mayor unveiled the JN that was there few days, meeting with an official of the Health Centre which ensured that the problem will be solved soon. After having sent the petition, I was contacted by the director, who told me that the chair would be arranged and that consultations would resume, said Joaquim Granadeiro.

The president also said that the prolonged lack of consultation has been the subject of many complaints from residents living in the area.

JN

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In my humble opinion should have already been packaged and sent to the chair for the Office of the Director General of Health or the Office of the Minister of Health.

I'm still unaware that they both want it and that will come to ask for an investigation of inquiries to succeed, do not go to the event that any of them come the fall of that chair.