The Recovery of the Portuguese National Health Service: New Perspectives for Health Policy

Abstract

In Portugal the existence of a Social State prevails and as such, the protection of the right to health is inscribed in the Constitution of the Republic as a duty of the State before all its citizens. In pursuit of this constitutional imposition, the National Health Service (SNS) was created in 1979 to guarantee a universal care service (directed to all citizens), general (at all levels of care from primary care, hospital care, Rehabilitation and palliation) and with a tendency to be free of charge, as they are charged a fee that corresponds to a small contribution in access created with the objective of rationalizing the use of services when not necessary. The National Health Service recently crossed (between 2011 and 2015) a period of retrocession marked by the economic crisis that overwhelmed Portugal and generated a disinvestment in health. This article reports on the recent experience of the Portuguese public health service with the arrival of external intervention from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union and through the case study is intended to verify which measures / reforms have already been initiated by the new Government to recover from National Health Service.