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Healthcare system, public health, medical news, and wellness updates from Portugal.

The shopfront of a working high-street pharmacy in Viseu, with the green pharmacy cross lit above the pavement and two people standing outside.

Patients Paid 571 Million Euros at Portuguese Pharmacy Counters in Seven Months, While the State's Share Climbed Four Times Faster

INFARMED's July report puts patient spending at 571.6 million euros, up 2.1 percent, and the SNS share at 1,179.3 million, up 8.3 percent. The average co-payment per pack actually fell two cents. What rose was volume, and one diabetes class accounts for a third of the increase.

The Portugal Brief 15 Sep 2026

The low cream-coloured frontage of the Centro de Saude da Moita health centre in Portugal, its name in black letters above a canopy, with a van parked on the forecourt

Half of Portugal's Over-Fifties Have Had a Colonoscopy in Ten Years, and the Share Runs From 37 Percent Without Schooling to 56 Percent With a Degree

A new INE release digs into the 2025 National Health Survey and finds that education pushes preventive care in two opposite directions: the checks a nurse does in the room reach the least educated most, and the tests you have to book yourself reach them least.

The Portugal Brief 15 Sep 2026

The Hospital Curry Cabral in Lisbon seen from the street, its yellow blocks with red window surrounds standing behind a low wall, with cars parked outside and a crossing in the foreground.

The WHO Counted Sixty-Six Clade Ib Mpox Cases in Portugal in Six Weeks, More Than Germany, France and Britain Together

Monday's situation report puts Portugal third in Europe on cumulative clade Ib cases and first on recent ones. The last national bulletin the Direcção-Geral da Saúde published is dated 31 May 2025, and it says Portugal had recorded no clade Ib cases at all.

The Portugal Brief 14 Sep 2026

The neoclassical granite block of the Hospital de Santo Antonio in Porto seen from a street corner, its pediment topped by a stone statue against a clear sky

Porto's Santo Antonio Scheduled 193 Extra Operating Programmes for September, and Orthopaedics and Neurosurgery Received None of Them

The northern doctors' union says an internal circular cuts additional surgical production to about a third of the usual volume. Official data put 7,835 patients on the unit's surgical waiting list in June, 1,378 of them past the guaranteed response time.

The Portugal Brief 14 Sep 2026

The Hospital Professor Doutor Fernando Fonseca in Amadora seen from below, with a bronze bust on a stone plinth in front of the entrance canopy.

Forty Percent of the Patients at Amadora-Sintra Are Foreign Nationals, and the Hospital Has Eight Emergency Doctors Where It Needs Thirty

Sandra Cavaca took over one of Portugal's most pressured hospitals in February. Eleven doctors have left the fixed emergency team, 200,000 people in its area have no family doctor, and it holds 0.8 beds per thousand residents against a national 3.7.

The Portugal Brief 13 Sep 2026

The Hospital de Santa Maria in Lisbon at night, its floodlit main block behind scaffolding, with flags and the hospital banner over the central entrance

Twenty-Five Patients Who Would Have Been Flown to England Were Operated On in Lisbon Instead, and the Saving Is Put at More Than 1.5 Million Euros a Year

Santa Maria's pulmonary thromboendarterectomy programme, built with the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, has recorded 25 operations in two and a half years. Until it opened, the national standard let a Portuguese centre meet the rules by sending cases abroad.

The Portugal Brief 13 Sep 2026

The stone and glass facade of the Hospital da Luz private hospital in Lisbon, photographed from the pavement below against a clear blue sky.

Portugal Passed Four Million Health-Insurance Holders in 2025 at an Average 437 Euros a Year, and 63 Percent of Complaints Ended Against the Customer

The insurance regulator's 2025 scorecard puts the average premium per insured person at 437.21 euros, individual policies at 452.38 and employer schemes at 423.90. It also counted 3,954 closed complaints, most of them about a claim rather than a price.

The Portugal Brief 12 Sep 2026

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