“I would be doing the best for the patients with heart diseases, including treatment and prevention, health promotion and health education, and cardiovascular interventions.”
DILI, 08 march 2022 (TATOLI) – Twenty-seven specialty doctors and six allied technicians vowed to serve the communities after signing the terms of acceptance to perform their newly assigned tasks and responsibilities professionally.
Speaking at the signing ceremony of the terms of the acceptance, the Minister of Health Odete Maria Freitas Belo said that the 33 health workers were assigned with new tasks and responsibilities to improve the delivery of health services across a number of health care centers and hospitals to better serve the communities.
Minister Belo congratulated the 33 health workers and wished them all the very best with their new duties.
“MoH would put efforts to increase the number of human resources of the ministry, particularly the physician specialties to improve special care at the referral and national hospital,” Belo told reporters at the meeting hall of the MoH, in Dili, on monday.
As of december 2021, the Ministry of Health recorded a total of 5149 permanent health workers and 317 contracted administrative and clerical staff. MoH also contracted 1855 health workers during Covid-19 to tackle the pandemic and carry out Timor-Leste’s Family Health Program.
She said Timor-Leste needed to increase the number of specialty doctors to treat the complicated disease in the country in order to reduce the number of patients going overseas.
“Ministry of Health had planned to deploy five health workers at every healthcare center, which is made up of a doctor, a nurse, a midwife, a medical technician, and a public health staff, therefore, we need more human resources,” she said.
Belo called on the 33 health workers to perform their duty and responsibility professionally to achieve the vision of healthy Timorese and healthy Timor-Leste.
At the same place, a young cardiologist, Herculano Seixas dos Santos, who finalized his cardiology from the University of Havana, in Cuba, revealed that he has been performing his job as a cardiologist since coming back from Cuba in 2020: “I have been working at the National Hospital Guido Valadares (HNGV) since 2020 as a cardiologist, and today I am officially a cardiologist.”
“In today’s medical oath, we swear to obey the constitution and all related rules and regulations to put the public interest above all. During the oath, we promise to act in the best interest of the patient and to protect patient privacy. As a cardiologist, I vowed to treat not just the diseases I encounter but to think of each individual patient as a whole person,” Santos said.
Santos stressed that he would perform his job professionally to support communities in need: “I would be doing the best for the patients with heart diseases, including treatment and prevention, health promotion and health education, and cardiovascular interventions.”
“Now, we have a total of seven Timorese cardiologists, including myself. Three of them would be deployed to the referral hospitals namely Maliana, Maubisse, and Baucau. So, our presence would improve the health service delivery in the country, particularly with the provision of adequate medical treatment to the patients with heart diseases,” Santos added.
He appreciated MoH’s plan to invest in increasing the number of Timorese specialty doctors to treat the complicated diseases in the country rather than sending the patients abroad.
Journalist: Filomeno Martins
Editor: Rafy Belo
