According to Lusa News Agency the chairman of the CHUA Board of Directors, Ana Castro, said that the decision to close the field hospital was taken “during the weekend”, when CHUA started seeing “only 60 percent of hospitalized patients” in wards dedicated to Covid-19.

The six patients transferred to the CHUA units are still waiting for a negative Covid test results in order to be able to return to their homes or nursing homes.

Ana Castro said that these patients “have to stay in the hospital” and “cannot go home” until they “have a negative test”, even though they no longer present “clinical criteria for being admitted”.

The structure dedicated to patients with covid-19 was installed in Portimão Arena on 10 January, but because of the drop in the number of hospitalized patients “it did not make sense” to keep phase four of the contingency plan, returning to “phase three”, he stressed.

By decision of the Portimão Town Hall, taken in conjunction with Civil Protection, the structure will remain assembled and ready to, if necessary, “be up and running in 24 hours”, something that Ana Castro hopes “will not be required".

During the 37 days that it was in operation, this unit received 170 patients, 105 of whom came from other regions, 126 patients were discharged, 22 were transferred to CHUA structures and 22 deaths were recorded.