This information was provided to Lusa by the ULS, which includes the Fernando Fonseca Hospital and the new Sintra Hospital, built by the city council and inaugurated this month. It added that professionals have been hired for these two health units since January of this year.

According to the same source, in the hospital area, the ULS has 63 new doctors, in addition to 31 new doctors for primary care.

Specifically, at Sintra Hospital, the basic emergency department has six doctors, five of whom transferred from the previous basic emergency department in Algueirão Mem-Martins, and, in early August, it will be reinforced by at least three new doctors, ULSAS said. Speaking to Lusa, the director of the emergency department at the ULS (Low-School of Health) said that, after the Sintra Hospital opened, there has still been no relief from the pressure on the Fernando Fonseca emergency room.

"We need more time to understand this," said Luís Duarte Costa, noting that the basic emergency room at the Sintra Hospital is experiencing a higher volume of patients than at the Mem-Martins unit.

The Mem-Martins emergency room had a maximum daily flow of 90 to 100 patients, while the Sintra hospital now has 130 to 150, the doctor said, adding that this increase was expected with the opening of the new hospital and that, therefore, the teams were reinforced. Luís Duarte Costa also emphasized that the emergency room at Fernando Fonseca Hospital "has been completely overwhelmed" for about 30 years, claiming that, when it opened, "it was quickly realized that it was undersized for the 600,000 people in these municipalities."

According to him, the "main problem with the emergency room" at Amadora-Sintra is the inability to "drain patients" from the emergency rooms to the wards, a difficulty that will be gradually alleviated with the installed capacity at Sintra Hospital.

On July 15, the day after the inauguration, the Southern Zone Doctors' Union (SMZS) warned that the emergency room at the new Sintra Hospital was operating "at the expense" of Amadora-Sintra's teams because no clinicians had been recruited for the recently opened unit. "Fernando Fonseca Hospital, which already had severely understaffed staff, is facing further challenges as doctors are being pulled to the emergency room at Sintra Hospital," the union said in a statement.

Sintra Hospital, which began construction over four years ago, is located in Casal da Cavaleira, in the parish of Algueirão-Mem Martins, with a covered area of 10,500 square meters and an uncovered area of 49,000 square meters.

It represented an investment of approximately R$81 million, including construction and equipment acquisition, and will serve approximately 550,000 patients.

It offers outpatient services, outpatient consultations and exams, a mental health unit, physical rehabilitation medicine, a collection centre, and complementary diagnostic and therapeutic resources, as well as an outpatient surgery unit with a surgical suite and recovery room.

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