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Health

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

Porto city hall at the head of the Avenida dos Aliados, with a reflecting pool and magnolia trees in front of the clock tower

Porto Is Paying for Five Health Centres Itself, Almost Eleven Million Euros After the Recovery Plan Covered Just 300,000

Pedro Duarte says a failed handover of units and equipment left the city unable to apply inside the Recovery Plan window, so the municipal budget absorbed a bill drawn up on the assumption of EU money. Two centres are open; the two costly ones finish in 2028.

The Portugal Brief 12 Sep 2026

A yellow and blue INEM ambulance marked Instituto Nacional de Emergencia Medica and 112, parked on a paved forecourt

INEM's Technicians Call Off Their 14 and 28 September Strikes After Fifty-Six Ambulances Are Left Where They Are

Four hours at the Health Ministry, with the minister and INEM's president both present, ended the dispute. The plan to convert 46 life-support ambulances becomes a pilot covering 15.

The Portugal Brief 12 Sep 2026

The Amadora town marker at the entrance to the city, beside a row of coloured residential apartment blocks under a clear blue sky, with a second Amadora sign on the building at right.

Greater Lisbon Is the Last Gap in Portugal's Child Trauma Counselling Network, and a 648,000 Euro Tender Closing on 6 October Would Fill It

Portugal runs 37 specialist teams giving free psychological support to children who have lived with domestic violence. The Lisbon metropolitan area has one, in Cascais. The CIG is tendering for three more, in Lisbon, Sintra, and Amadora with Loures.

The Portugal Brief 12 Sep 2026

The main entrance of the Hospital da Guarda, a low white building with ambulances parked outside and staff in white at the door

Almost Half a Million People in Portugal Live More Than an Hour From an Emergency Room, and Eleven Districts Cannot Keep a Doctor

The Ordem dos Medicos presented its study on retaining doctors in sparsely populated territories in Guarda on Friday. It names eleven areas, Faro and the islands among them, and asks for tax breaks, housing and loyalty payments.

The Portugal Brief 11 Sep 2026

A Portuguese basic school building behind railings and pine trees, with Escola E. Basico 2,3 Ramalho Ortigao carved into the pale facade beneath a stone relief

A 1962 Decree Still Bars an Unvaccinated Child From Sitting an Exam in a Portuguese School, and This Week the State Deleted the Page That Said So

Decreto-Lei n.o 44198 has never been amended in 64 years. The education ministry and the DGS both say vaccination cannot block enrolment, which describes practice accurately and the statute not at all.

The Portugal Brief 10 Sep 2026

Aerial view of Ermesinde in Valongo, with the railway station canopies, the urban park and its brick chimney, and the town rising to the hills beyond.

Valongo Shut Two Changing Rooms After Legionella Turned Up in a Routine Water Test, and What the Law Calls a Cluster Is Something Else Entirely

The council found Legionella pneumophila at the Estádio de Sobrado and Legionella spp at a school pavilion in Ermesinde, both during scheduled quarterly testing, with nobody reported ill. Which is precisely why, under Lei 52/2018, neither is legally an outbreak.

The Portugal Brief 09 Sep 2026

The glass and concrete office block in Moscavide that houses the PSP's Lisbon Metropolitan Command, seen from the corner above calçada paving

Portugal Counted 14,476 People Without a Home at the End of 2024, and the Charity Working Lisbon's Streets Would Bring Back the 1990s Drug Playbook

Comunidade Vida e Paz accompanies about 450 people on Lisbon's streets. Answering the PSP's metropolitan commander, its president asked for school prevention, more treatment beds and employability programmes rather than money alone.

The Portugal Brief 08 Sep 2026

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