On 30 September, the Order of Physiotherapists organised a commemorative event with the theme "Challenges in the Profession".
The opening session was attended by Secretary of State for Health, Ricardo Mestre, who thanked physiotherapists for their work in promoting the health of citizens, stressing that they are fundamental to helping the country achieve a better quality of life. "Today we have a longer average life expectancy. And this leads us to define policies that can intervene along the entire continuum of care: in health promotion, disease prevention, early diagnosis, timely treatment, continued rehabilitation throughout life, in other words, throughout the entire process we have to be able to introduce, as we have been promoting, improvements along the entire chain of care. And here, physiotherapists are important at all these stages. [...] It's a profession that we obviously rely on, a profession that we hope to be able to integrate more and more into this continuum of care." he said.
Earlier, also at the Opening Session, the President of the Order of Physiotherapists, António LopesHe said he wanted "our [physiotherapy] care is accessible to all citizens, in the different regions where they are, in the different health subsystems that represent them and in the time windows in which the contribution is most relevant" and that, in order to do so, "we will have to increase the number of physiotherapists in National Health Service institutions (of the more than 11,000 physiotherapists currently registered, only around 10% work in the NHS), overcoming obsolete models of referencing and prescribing standardised acts (the legislation itself has evolved but an organisational culture remains based on premises that have lost their meaning and reasonableness, namely the stigma that Physiotherapy is an exclusive part of the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation silo) and create the conditions for a proper record of our intervention and monitoring of the results".
The opening session also included speeches by Chairman of the General Council, Rui Costa, and the President of the Jurisdictional Council, Isabel de Souza Guerra.
Honours
The event, which took place at the Belém Cultural Centre in Lisbon, was also marked by moments of homage to various personalities/entities who have distinguished themselves in the teaching of Physiotherapy as an autonomous scientific discipline: the Board of the Holy House of Mercy of Lisbon which, in 1957, began the project of training professionals in the field of rehabilitation with an international profile, João Vasconcelos Martins, Margarida Lopes Gouveia and Alice Beja Ferreirafor his merit and efforts in projecting the professional values that he was able to instil in all those who lived with him, and in consolidating the image of Portuguese physiotherapists, both nationally and internationally, Isabel Rasgado Rodrigues (Alcoitão Rehabilitation School), Cristina Argel de Melo (Porto Technical School of Health Services), Isabel Sousa Coutinho (Lisbon Technical School of Health Services) and of João Neves Gil (Escola Técnica dos Serviços de Saúde de Coimbra), posthumously, for their merit and efforts in consolidating control of the training carried out by the physiotherapists themselves, through their leadership in the pedagogical and scientific aspects of the respective schools' courses and in the evolutionary process that led to their integration into higher education. The following were also honoured Madalena Gomes da Silvafor her merit in the development and affirmation of Physiotherapy as an autonomous scientific discipline, namely for being the first Portuguese physiotherapist to obtain a doctorate in Physiotherapy, Jan Cabri, for his merit in the development and affirmation of Physiotherapy as an autonomous scientific discipline in Portugal, namely for having led the creation of the first doctoral programme in Physiotherapy at the Lisbon Faculty of Motricity of the Technical University of Lisbon, and for having led the creation of the first doctoral programme in Physiotherapy at the Lisbon Faculty of Motricity of the Technical University of Lisbon. José Alberto Duarte, for his merit in the development and affirmation of Physiotherapy as an autonomous scientific discipline in Portugal, namely for having led the creation of the first cycle of doctoral studies in Physiotherapy at the Faculty of Sport of the University of Porto, which is still in operation today.
The following were also honoured António Lacerda Sales e Isabel Galriça Neto, as personalities who promoted the initiative to create the Order, namely for the merit and effort made in drafting and subscribing to a legislative project that would be approved by the Assembly of the Republic, giving rise to Law no. 122/2019, of 30 September, which created the Order of Physiotherapists and approved the respective Statutes and Isabel de Souza Guerra He was recognised for his dynamism and perseverance, the spirit of all those who, for decades, fought hard to achieve the goal of creating the Order of Physiotherapists, and the merit of having led the process of its installation, as President of the Installation Commission.
The morning also included a ceremony to welcome new physiotherapists into the profession.
Round table "Physiotherapy - A profession that adds value in Health!"
In the afternoon, the Studies and Planning Office, Eduardo José Cruz, launched the debate "Physiotherapy - A profession that adds value in Health!", which brought together the following speakers Pedro Maciel Barbosa with a presentation entitled "Person-centred practice", Sara Souto Miranda with "Evaluation of the experience and results obtained" and Carlos SandThe theme of the conference was "Evolution of national research in Physiotherapy. A bibliometric analysis of the development of evidence, impact and clinical-academic collaboration in recent decades".
The closing session was organised by 1st Vice-Chairman of the Board, Nuno Cordeiro.
Here are the photos that marked the 4th anniversary of the Order of Physiotherapists (gallery being updated)
