Government has already received reports with candidates for president of INEM

The Recruitment and Selection Committee for Public Administration (CReSAP) has already sent the Government the reports with the names of the three candidates for the presidency of the INEM Board of Directors, the Minister of Health announced this Tuesday.

"At this moment, CReSAP has already sent us the reports for consideration", Ana Paula Martins told journalists, on the sidelines of the inauguration of a photography exhibition - open until 5 April - about the healing process, as part of the 45th anniversary of the National Health Service (SNS), at the Júlio de Matos Hospital, in Lisbon.

Without giving a deadline for communicating who will take over the leadership of the National Institute of Medical Emergencies (INEM), the minister stressed that "interviews still need to be carried out" and a "process to be carried out by the Government".

In accordance with the competitive procedures with a proposal for designation from CReSAP, it is up to the member of the Government, within a maximum period of 45 days from the date of receipt of the proposal, to designate one of the candidates.

The competition opened on 6 January and ended on the 19th of the same month. After the selection process was concluded, the jury prepared "the nomination proposal indicating three candidates, in alphabetical order, accompanying it with the grounds for choosing each of them".

At the beginning of the year, the Government opened a competition for the selection and recruitment of the president of the National Institute of Medical Emergencies, currently led by Sérgio Dias Janeiro, appointed in July for a period of 60 days.

After a first competition that did not have enough candidates, this is the second time that the Government has tried to fill the vacancy of president of INEM, with the publication in the Official Gazette of the "competitive procedure" for the position, which will be selected by the Recruitment and Selection Commission for Public Administration (CReSAP).

The notice has an application deadline of ten working days after publication on the CReSAP website and the "indication of the formal requirements for appointment, desired profile, composition of the jury and selection methods will be published on the Public Employment Exchange (BEP)", states the note.

According to the first competition, which appears on the CReSAP website, preference is given to graduates in medicine or management, with consideration given to issues such as leadership, management and organization skills, among other subjects, with experience in "management and administration of organizations, preferably in the health area" and "within the scope of the integrated medical emergency system".

Sérgio Dias Janeiro, then director of the Internal Medicine Service at the Armed Forces Hospital, was appointed on 12 July on a 60-day replacement basis, after the previous appointee, Vítor Almeida, had withdrawn his decision to accept the position.

Vítor Almeida was appointed on July 4th as president of INEM, after Luís Meira resigned from the position following a controversy over the competition for emergency medical helicopters, alleging a breach of trust in the authority.

At the time, the anesthetist Vítor Almeida had imposed conditions, not accepted by the authorities, related to the emergency helicopters at the service of INEM.

Luís Meira had also resigned after criticizing the way in which the acquisition of helicopters for air emergencies was managed, which was done by direct agreement and not through an international public tender.

Health Minister Ana Paula Martins has advocated the need to "re-establish INEM". "We now know that the INEM we have is not the INEM we need", she said in Parliament. Meanwhile, the Government has created an independent commission to study the current medical emergency response, which is chaired by Judge Leonor Furtado.