"The situation is much more serious and more complex than what has been said,” Miguel Guimarães announced after a meeting with the directors of gynaecology, obstetrics and neonatal departments across southern Portugal.

“All maternity facilities have difficulties: almost all depend on bringing in outside staff to be able to cover emergency shifts, support to the birth block, etc," he said, adding that all facilities are facing "a great lack of specialists".

Guimarães cited as an example the maternity wards of hopspitals in Faro, in the Algarve, which is nine specialists short, in Portimão, where 11 are needed, in Amadora-Sintra, where nine are needed, at Lisbon’s Santa Maria Hospital, which lacks seven, and the capital’s San Francisco Xavier Hospital, which is 16 short.

In total, 150 gynecology and obstetrics specialists are needed nationwide, 125 of them in southern Portugal, he said.

As an immediate response to the problem, Guimarães called for "a public procurement policy that works in the same way as external contracting, whether for medical specialists or for the doctors of the hospital itself that could do more overtime hours but remunerated differently."