Teens exempt from user fees in the NHS from 1 … – publico

                 

                         
                     

                         

                 

 
                         

The teens are exempt from payment of user fees in the National Health Service (NHS) from 1 May. The remission of these rates will thus be extended from the current 12 years to all minors. Announced for months, the measure was published Wednesday in Gazette , in what is the fifth amendment to Decree-Law that created the new model for the payment of user fees in NHS units.

                     

                          The preamble to the now revised ordinance, it is argued that the non-payment of user fees by “minors” (18 years) is “an indirect stimulus, a predictable framework, to increase the birth rate, under the adoption of public policies for the promotion of birth, protecting children and supporting families. ”

is a measure that aims to “promote health among those who have more to gain by adopting healthy habits,” even justify legislators.

Another objective is to “ensure the elimination of any financial constraints in access to health services provided by the NHS, particularly as the decision to use or not to care does not depend only minors. “

The extension of user fees payment exemption for all children and young people up to 18 years, in order to facilitate attendance at health centers, it was defended from 2012 by the National Committee on Maternal, Child and Adolescent.

The group of specialists that integrates the committee proposed to exempt all children and young people up to 18 years, in health centers and where were referred by family doctors to hospitals in order to increase access without financial constraints. The committee chairman, Bilhota Xavier explained at the time that teens are “not seek health care” and that therefore “all the factors that act as barriers must be fought.”

The exemption of user fees up to 18 years was also claimed by the Left Bloc that in 2013, presented in Parliament a recommendation to the Government in this direction, but the project was leaded .

With this legislative amendment now published, are also exempt from payment of user fees young people “in the process of promoting and protecting the run in terms of protection of children and youth commission or in court, “than are to fulfill” protect hospitalization as “precautionary measure guard in an educational center or in a public or private institution that” can not, in any way, prove their economic failure condition. “

The measure also covers “young people integrated into any social responses received by court decision in civil guardianship proceedings” without possibility of demonstrating economic failure condition.