The Vice-President of the Government praised at the Legislative Assembly in Horta the understanding reached between the Regional and National Government regarding the provision of healthcare to Azorean citizens in the National Health Service.
 
Sérgio Ávila spoke at the debate of the draft proposal for decree-law, to be presented at the National Assembly, and of the proposal for Regional Legislative Decree establishing that Azorean patients should not pay for services provided by health units in Mainland Portugal and that should applies to patients from Mainland Portugal using the Regional Health Service.
 
In his speech, the government official regretted that the opposition has devalued this agreement that was now reached with the current National Government, unlike what happened with the previous Government.
 
Stressing the importance of this agreement, Sérgio Ávila recalled that, so far, "Azoreans citizens were being treated by the National Health Service as foreigners and not as Portuguese citizens."
 
The Vice-President also corrected the statements about alleged debts of the Region to ADSE (civil servants' welfare system) in an offset procedure provided in an article of the draft State Budget for 2016. The government official explained that, contrary to the statements, the offset concerns "debts paid by Autonomous Regions to ADSE beneficiaries."
 
However, Sérgio Ávila lamented that a similar proposal to the ones under debate, following the agreement signed between the Regional and National Government, had been "flunked" a year ago by the members of PSD and CDS/PP, the then parliamentary majority. They even required the Region to take the commitment to pay for the treatments provided to Azorean patients by healthcare facilities in Mainland Portugal.