Doctor da Silva Moura dos Reis is the new Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Regional Health Administration of the Algarve appointed by the Ministry of Health.
The Algarve board retains the services of Miguel Madeira, the only one left from the previous management team. Martins dos Santos and Ana Costa resigned in July for disagreeing over the merger of the Algarve’s three hospitals top create the Center Hospital of the Algarve.
One looming PR disaster is to explain how a child of 8 has died of appendicitis, misdiagnosed by the national health service and unable to pay for private treatment. The Romani family of the 8-year old, who died of a perforated appendix and subsequent infection of the bloodstream after an operation at Faro Hospital, is suing Hospital Center Algarve (CHA) and the Portimão Helath Centre for negligence in the diagnosis and monitoring of the child.
Over several days the mother of Paulo Rafael, Délia Silaghi sought urgent medical help for the boy, first in the western Algarve Hospital and then at the Health Centre in Portimão where doctors failed to diagnose appendicitis despite her insistence that this could be the problem.
The CHA has already opened "an internal investigation to determine what happened" but did not want to issue a fuller statement before the final report is available. Already there is still a preliminary report which suggest, according to the current Director of CHA Pedro Nunes, that there has been no medical malpractice - but then he would hardly admit malpractice at this early stage.
Paulo Rafael 's mother, Delia Silaghi, does not question the performance of the eventual surgical services, but the diagnostic consultations are another matter. The child had been to two public health facilities in Portimao in the days before he died, with symptoms of abdominal pain and fever, but always was sent home.
Appendicitis was only detected when the family brought the lad to the private Hospital Particular in Alvor when the child’s condition had deteriorated further. As the family did not have €3,000 to pay for an operation the boy was sent back to Portimão Hospital and then was transferred urgently to Faro Hospital.
"The doctors at the Faro hospital found that Paulo had a perforated appendix and tried to clean up all the liquid, however infection had spread into the bloodstream. Later the boy had cardiac arrest but doctors managed to revive him” said Paulo’s mother.
Young Paulo survived the operation, but died two days later in the Hospital Santa Maria in Lisbon where he had been taken by helicopter.
Pedro Nunes, the current head of CHA denied that the death of the old boy was due to poor medical diagnosis or care, attributing the situation as "one of those misfortunes that happen sometimes."
