Azores. Ombusdman Office organises Human Rights Conference on the occasion of the presentation of a study on “Access to the Regional Health System”

The public presentation of the study on “Access to the Regional Health System – Autonomous Region of the Azores” [in Portuguese only], conducted by Professor Piedade Lalanda, will take place on 15 October, at 10.30am, in the Aula Magna of the University of the Azores.

Promoted by the Ombudsman Office, under the scope of the DEMOS Project, the presentation of this study will be followed, in the afternoon, by the “Human Rights Seminars” open to the educational community.

These days will take as a starting point the work “The Ombudsman’s Office in the Safeguard of Human Rights”, published in 2018 on the occasion of the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the “Pandemic Notebooks”, a small collection of studies around the impacts on Education, Homeless People and the Rule of Law of the exceptional times that are still being experienced due to Covid-19.

Integrated in the INTERREG 2014-2020 programme and financed by FEDER – European Regional Development Fund, the DEMOS Project aims to foster activities to promote the knowledge society and to increase the levels of development and socioeconomic integration of the outermost regions of Portugal and Spain, composed by the archipelagos of Madeira, the Azores and the Canary Islands (the Macaronesian Islands).

Throughout its participation in the DEMOS Project, which began in 2016, the Ombudsman’s Office identified, in each of the Portuguese Autonomous Regions, issues that were considered to warrant a more in-depth approach.

In this context, it recently commissioned the study “Access to the Regional Health System – Autonomous Region of the Azores” from the University of the Azores, carried out by Professor Piedade Lalanda, and from the University of Madeira the study “Implementation of Public Policies on Social Housing in the Autonomous Region of Madeira”, conducted under the scientific coordination of Professor António Almeida and Professor Susana Teles.

These studies enable the identification of the main challenges in the development of regional policies regarding the themes they address. It is important to emphasise that the conclusions of this scientific work do not necessarily reflect the position of the Ombudsman, but rather constitute an essential contribution of analysis and reflection in the sense of fully realising the fundamental rights to health and housing in the Portuguese Autonomous Regions.