According to Expresso, sources in the executive and the PSD confirm the reorganisation will happen “very soon”. The aim is to move forward with the planned reforms and to relieve the considerable political pressure currently on the Ministry, as in the pressure which has been exacerbated recently by the deaths linked to the alleged failures of the emergency departments in the Algarve and the arrest of the head of the Aveiro ULS on suspicion of corruption and influence peddling.

At the core of the reorganisation will be the merger of the DE-SNS with the ACSS, a reorganisation already in the government’s programme and a point of emphasis for PM Luís Montenegro at the PSD Congress in June.

This will change how the SNS is coordinated at a time when the Minister herself is heavily involved in hospital management. There is concern about the potential for the DE to be dissolved, and that is a point of concern for several stakeholders, particularly as it comes at the very time of winter when the system is under the most strain.

The string of resignations and scandals in the hospital administration of the Algarve and Aveiro regions has once again brought the issue of how administrators are selected to the fore. In recent days, the Ministry of Health has made a clear attempt to distance itself from appointing individual administrators to the ULS boards.

Expresso notes that in June Ana Paula Martins made it clear that administrators are appointed to deliver the government’s health policy and that the appointments are not purely political. The creation of a new coordinating body has seen the names of former PSD MPs (Nuno Reis and Carlos Martins, former Secretary of State) re-emerge as possible candidates for its leadership. However, no decision has been taken yet.

Some within the PSD clearly sense the strain building, but the PM is determined to back the Minister. “She’s not going anywhere,” one of the PM’s closest sources told the weekly. That’s exactly what the Minister has said herself, and she’s set March 2027 as the date by which the core of her reform programme will be complete.

In the parliamentary and party-political sphere, the opposition views the simple replacement of hospital managers as being entirely inadequate and is calling for Ana Paula Martins to go immediately. PS Secretary-General José Luís Carneiro has said the Minister “has no political authority and is simply not capable of doing the job”. He has also been critical of PM Luís Montenegro’s appointments. Chega’s André Ventura is taking the same line. The Minister has had a reprieve ahead of her hearing before a parliamentary committee (a hearing the Socialists requested), due to the debate on the State Budget and media focus on the impact of Storm Charles.

The government, however, is in no position to do any cabinet reshuffles at this stage. As Expresso has reported, the view within the government is that both Ana Paula Martins, for the speed with which she got rid of the hospital managers, and the Minister of Home Affairs, for his handling of the communications and the preventive measures during the storm, have, in fact, politically come out of the situation strengthened.

The only person expected to be leaving the government at this stage is Secretary of State for Regional Development Hélder Reis, who has been appointed as a judge-councillor at the Court of Auditors. His swearing-in is being put off until the end of Q1 2027, a date which may well be the one the Health Minister has set for the end of her reform programme.


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