The Prime Minister announced that this Wednesday an agreement was reached between his government and the social sector to provide free day care for 1st grade children from September.
“I can announce that today we have concluded an agreement with the União das Misericórdias and the National Confederation of Solidarity Institutions, which ensures that one of the main measures of the budget is respected: free day care for children from the 1st year already in September,” declared António Costa in the Assembly Republic.
Speaking at the opening of the state of the nation debate, the leader of the executive stated that “even in times of war and global inflation, governance also requires finding solutions to the many problems that interfere with the daily life of the Portuguese, the operation of airports until the closure of some hospitals during emergencies or, more recently, , in the event of the worst combination of meteorological factors in this century.”
“The government must respond with action to the chaos speech,” he said, before touching on some of the cases that have affected his executive branch over the past three and a half months.
Regarding the case of arrival at Lisbon Airport, the Prime Minister stated that there was a response that included strengthening the facilities of the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), “either with the commissioning of the first PSP elements specially trained for border control, or with the established technological equipment.
“We have been able to reduce the average landing time for non-Schengen flights from almost two hours in May, which even peaked at over six hours on the 29th, to around 40 minutes last week,” he said.
In the case of the closure of several emergency departments in the health sector, especially gynecology and obstetrics, António Costa referred to the step taken with the approval of the new National Health Service (SNS) Statute, “but also to better management tools, like the diploma approved on Wednesday and creating conditions for stabilizing the work of emergency rescue units of services and institutions integrated into the SNS.
“In any case – look at the numbers – SNS provided 49,000 gynecological emergencies and 7,700 births during this period, and, very importantly, it transferred only 0.3% – I repeat only 0.3% – of users from one hospital to another,” he said.
With regard to wildfires, the Prime Minister believes that the civil protection system “has passed the test with the emergency civilian support of the population, which is absolutely necessary to reduce the incidence of fires by negligence.”
“In these first days, more than 90% of the incidents were extinguished at the first intervention and more than 85% burned less than one hectare. In addition to improved training, management, communications and equipment, firefighters and other protection, this outcome would not have been possible without significant measures starting to take effect, from simplified registration to landscape management plans implemented as part of the Structural Forest Reform launched in 2017. “, he defended.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
