Patients were waiting to be seen, but some health workers were busy with something else entirely. There are those who slept during the work shift and those who had withdrawn for a moment of intimacy. It was the mayor who discovered what was happening inside the hospital, who showed up unannounced to verify the numerous reports from citizens about waiting times and delays in assistance.
The story comes from Brazil, precisely from Barreiros, a city in the state of Pernambuco. The protagonist of the surprise inspection is Mayor Carlinhos da Pedreira, who on the evening of Wednesday 4 November decided to personally check what was happening inside the Jailton Messias de Albuquerque municipal hospital.
Here the mayor surprised a doctor in intimate attitudes during service hours. This would not have been the only irregularity: during the inspection, other healthcare workers would also have been identified sleeping or secluded with colleagues, while citizens complained about delays in assistance. What pushed the mayor to intervene were complaints from residents, who reported excessive waits to receive medical care without there being any apparent reasons to justify the inefficiencies.
The inspection would thus have made it possible to ascertain behaviors incompatible with the regular performance of hospital activities. The consequences were not long in coming. The municipal administration of Barreiros has announced the termination of the contract with the Associação Beneficente João Paulo II, the organization in charge of the management and operation of the municipal hospital.
The Municipality has also established that the health facility will temporarily pass under the direct management of the public administration. This is an emergency measure, intended to remain in force until the conclusion of a new tender procedure to identify the organization to which to entrust the service.