Cost of the Armed Forces Hospital's New Surgical Wing in Lisbon Climbs by 5.6 Million Euros to 20.27 Million, and the Spending Now Runs to 2029

The Government has raised the planned cost of the new surgical wing at the Hospital das Forças Armadas (HFAR, the Armed Forces Hospital) in Lisbon from 14.71 million to 20.27 million euros, and has pushed the spending out to 2029, two years later than the original plan. The Council of Ministers took the decision on Wednesday 14 October.

The figures come from the Council of Ministers communiqué, which the Lusa news agency quoted as saying the investment "went from 14.71 to 20.27 million euros, with execution until 2029", as reported by Notícias ao Minuto and Observador. That is an increase of about 5.56 million euros, or roughly 38 percent, on the ceiling approved in March 2025.

Lusa's account of the communiqué gives no reason for the higher bill. The communiqué was not yet on the Government's website on Thursday morning, and the new resolution has not yet been published in the Diário da República (the official gazette), so the year-by-year split and the grounds for the revision are not yet public.

What was approved in 2025

The original authorisation is Resolução do Conselho de Ministros n.º 62/2025 (Council of Ministers resolution), approved on 10 March 2025 and published on 18 March. It allowed the Estado-Maior-General das Forças Armadas (EMGFA, the Armed Forces General Staff) to commit up to 14,709,286.33 euros, plus VAT, to build the surgical wing at the hospital's Lumiar site in Lisbon, as a new building known as H05.

That resolution spread the money over three years, with VAT added on top of each amount:

• 2025: 1,219,512.20 euros
• 2026: 7,317,073.17 euros
• 2027: 6,172,700.96 euros

The 14.71 million euro starting point quoted in this week's communiqué matches that pre-VAT ceiling. Lusa's report does not say whether the new 20.27 million euro figure also excludes VAT. When the project was announced in March 2025, the Government put it at about 18.1 million euros with VAT included.

According to the 2025 resolution, the hospital has two sites, one in Lisbon and one in Porto, and sits directly under the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces. It was created in 2014 by Decreto-Lei n.º 84/2014 (decree-law) when the separate Navy, Army and Air Force hospitals were merged and closed. The resolution says some clinical services from the old military hospitals could never be moved, wholly or partly, because the space and facilities were lacking.

A building programme for the Lisbon site and the Lumiar military health campus was first authorised in 2014 for the years 2014 to 2016, but the resolution records that those works were not all carried out. The surgical wing is the outstanding piece, and the Government described it as decisive both for the reform of military health care and for the hospital's support to the Serviço Nacional de Saúde (SNS, the National Health Service).

Thirty-one more surgical beds

The new wing is part of the expansion plan for the hospital's Lisbon site and the military health campus, and is meant to add 31 surgical beds to the 140 already in place, according to Lusa and RTP's report of the March 2025 announcement.

At that announcement, Defence Minister Nuno Melo called it the largest single investment ever made in military health. "I am sure that if it depends on the Armed Forces, the deadlines will be met without anything slipping, because the calculations have been done," he said, according to RTP, adding that the priority was to "launch the tenders" and get the building done.

On Base, the public procurement portal, the contracts published so far for building H05 concern its design rather than construction. The EMGFA signed a 150,000 euro direct award with the architects Aripa, Ilídio Pelicano, Arquitectos on 30 May 2025 to update the project, with 120 days to deliver. It then paid TUU, Building Design Management 19,970 euros on 27 November 2025 to review the architecture and engineering designs within 30 days. A search of the portal found no works contract or tender notice for the building under the names H05 or surgical module.

Who the hospital serves

The HFAR provides specialist care to members of the armed forces and their families, and to patients covered by agreements with the SNS, according to a project sheet on the hospital's own website, which puts its beneficiaries at about 600,000 people. That sheet covers a separate project: 12.8 million euros from the Recovery and Resilience Plan for heavy medical equipment, including MRI and PET/CT scanners and a robotic surgery system, for both the Lisbon and Porto sites.

Aircraft and F-16 maintenance

The same Council of Ministers meeting authorised spending to buy three military transport aircraft, without saying which aircraft, and up to 4.4 million euros in 2027 and 2028 for the 300-flight-hour phase inspection and related maintenance of the Air Force's F-16 fleet, Lusa reported. The F-16s are near the end of their service lives, and their replacement is expected in the next Military Programming Law.

The defence ministry is also rewriting the physical entry standards for the armed forces. Cost increases on hospital building projects are not confined to the military: Madeira's new central hospital went back to tender at 415 million euros in September.