Algarve Health Unit Denies a Child Died for Want of Care at Portimão Hospital as the Socialists Demand an Urgent Hearing With the Health Minister

The Algarve's public health unit has flatly denied that a child died at Portimão hospital for want of care, after the leader of the Socialist Party (PS) raised the possibility of a third death linked to the hospital's emergency department. The PS says it will call the Health Minister, Ana Paula Martins, before Parliament as a matter of urgency. For residents of the western Algarve, for whom Portimão is the main public hospital, the row turns a local inquiry into a national political fight.

The claim and the denial

Speaking to reporters on Sunday at a lunch with party members in Midões, in the Coimbra district, José Luís Carneiro said that since he first spoke about the hospital on Saturday he had been contacted with information that "there may have been another death, in this case of a child, for lack of response at Portimão hospital and in the transfer to Faro". He said he had been told the child "will have died in October", RTP reported.

The ULS do Algarve (Unidade Local de Saúde, the body that runs the region's public hospitals and health centres) answered the same day. In a statement reported by CNN Portugal and carried by Notícias ao Minuto, it "strongly" rejected the claim that a child had died "for lack of transport and assistance" at the hospital. According to the same report, the health unit said a child who had suffered irreversible damage did die on 22 October, but had received all the care required, including from a paediatrician. RTP also reported the ULS as saying that no minor died for want of transport and care at Portimão. We could not read the statement on the ULS website.

The hearing request

Carneiro said the PS would call the minister to the Assembleia da República "with urgency" to answer MPs' questions and to say what the government plans to do about "the serious health needs" in Portimão, Observador reported. He accused the minister of having "long been absent" from the needs of her ministry, and said the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, had a duty to explain the two deaths already under investigation. No date for a hearing has been set, and we found no public response from the minister by Monday morning.

A plan for the western Algarve

On Saturday the president of the PS in the Algarve, Hugo Pereira, sent an open letter to the minister asking for an intervention plan for Portimão hospital and the region's health services, Observador reported. The letter describes the two men who died while waiting in the emergency department last week as aged 87 and 94. It asks for more staff, for doctors and nurses to be hired and kept in the region, for complete rotas, and for patients to be monitored and clinically reassessed while they wait to be seen.

The ULS has opened internal inquiries into the cases raised by the hospital's nurses, and the IGAS (the health inspectorate) is investigating the death of the 87-year-old man. Neither has published findings. Our earlier reports cover the first death and the IGAS inquiry and the nurses' complaint about a second death.

What it means for you

If you or a relative has a complaint about care at a public hospital, you have the right to make it whatever your nationality or residence, first to the hospital itself, in person or online, and then to the ERS (Entidade Reguladora da Saúde, the health regulator). The ERS complaints page explains the steps, in Portuguese.