"We were barred from entering MAAN at a time when we had complied with all the necessary formalities to hold this meeting – we sent a letter to the institution, made the payment – and, even so, we were prevented (...). We believe that everything was deliberate, they obeyed superior orders, because there was no reason for us not to have access to the room", said on Friday the president of the National Union of Angolan Doctors (SNMA), Adriano Manuel.
The press conference, which ended up taking place in the area adjacent to MAAN, where more than 70 health professionals, including doctors and nurses, were gathered, was to "repudiate" the dismissal of six professionals from the David Bernardino Pediatric Hospital of Luanda due to alleged medical negligence.
These are three doctors and two nurses who were fired and one doctor who was expelled, all by the Ministry of Health, which said it found "medical negligence" in the case of a minor who died on January 1st, after waiting almost two hours to be seen.
According to Adriano Manuel, the professionals in question had no contact with the patient in question because the head of the team (who was fired), the other resident doctors and the nurses were attending to serious patients in the wards, considering that the decision to remove them "was diabolical".
The president of the SNMA promised to launch a series of national demonstrations and a general strike in the coming days, until the dismissed professionals are reinstated, highlighting that the hospital unit has few employees to meet the demand.
"The head of the medical team was attending to other serious patients in the ward, did not see the patient, the two rounds [nurses] were in the two hospitalization wards, each with more than 100 patients, and did not see the patient [in the emergency room]", he said.
The pediatrician assured that professionals at the Luanda Pediatric Hospital "in solidarity" with their colleagues who have been dismissed should file a lawsuit against the Inspector General of Health, because "he acted in bad faith and in a diabolical way to preserve his position".
"It was a diabolical attitude, all because he wants to preserve his position, it was clear there that he wants to preserve his position and we cannot stand by," he declared.
According to the results of the Health Ministry's investigation, presented on Wednesday, "acts of serious negligence" and "blatant denial" of ethical values by the medical team were found, which would have contributed to the death of the two-year-old child, whose father, at the time, recorded a video calling for help in the emergency room of that hospital.
