🇵🇹 Portugal news, in English, every morning. Free. Subscribe

The Portugal Brief

Home
Politics
Economy
Guides
About

Sign in Subscribe

Health

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

Farmacia Duarte Ferreira in Rossio ao Sul do Tejo, Abrantes, a corner pharmacy with a white awning, a green pharmacy cross on the yellow and white facade and calcada paving outside.

Portugal Prices the Pharmacy Flu and Covid Shot at 3.15 Euros, With a 7.6 Million Euro Ceiling on What It Will Pay

Portaria n.o 376/2026/1 sets what the state pays a pharmacy for each dose in the 2026 to 2027 campaign. It is not a user charge. Last winter 2,585 pharmacies gave more than 1.1 million flu shots and about 631,000 against Covid-19, close to half of each national total.

The Portugal Brief 25 Aug 2026

The Extensao de Saude de Ferreiras, a small single-storey Portuguese public health post with a red tiled roof and barred windows, seen from the car park on an overcast day.

Portugal Carves Out Dedicated Centres for Driving, Hunting and Firearms Medicals to Take the Paperwork Off Family Doctors

Portaria n.o 377/2026/1, published on Tuesday, lets each of the 39 local health units open a Centro de Avaliacao Medica e Psicologica. It covers group 1 and group 2 driving licences, hunting permits, gun licences and nautical activities. No centre exists yet, and the text sets no price.

The Portugal Brief 25 Aug 2026

A completed unit of donated whole blood in a clear plastic bag, held up in one hand beside the donation tubing at a collection session.

Algarve Hospitals Are Holding Thinner Blood Stocks Than a Normal August, and the Region's Health Chief Stops Short of the Word Crisis

Tiago Botelho, president of the Unidade Local de Saude do Algarve, says reserves across the region's hospitals are down even on the usual summer dip, and appeals for donors while rejecting the word crisis. Collection sessions are running at Fatacil in Lagoa.

The Portugal Brief 25 Aug 2026

The lit facade and emergency vehicle entrance of the Hospital de Santa Maria in Lisbon at night, with a blue direction sign reading excepto viaturas de emergencia.

Health Ministry Sets End of November to Name Portugal's First Wave of Regional Emergency Departments

The current network of more than 160 emergency services rests on an architecture defined over a decade ago. A working group under anaesthetist Antonio Marques da Silva is assessing which specialties should be concentrated regionally, with orthopaedics in Lisbon and Vale do Tejo named as a candidate.

The Portugal Brief 25 Aug 2026

A yellow INEM ambulance marked Ministerio da Saude and 112 parked on cobbles in Lisbon, with the Castelo de Sao Jorge hillside behind it.

Two Emergency Ambulances in Every Council That Has None: The Terms INEM's Technicians Take Into Wednesday's Ministry Meeting

STEPH's strike notice for 14 and 28 September asks INEM to keep all 56 emergency ambulances, drop the plan to turn life-support ambulances into cars, and open two emergency ambulances in every council without one by the end of 2027. Only five councils have two or more today.

The Portugal Brief 25 Aug 2026

The arched stone entrance of the Maternidade Alfredo da Costa in Lisbon, seen from Rua Pinheiro Chagas, with a sign for the emergency department and paediatric clinic beside the gate.

Portugal Has Deleted 'Obstetric Violence' From Its Own Law, and With It the Fines for Routine Episiotomies

Lei n.º 57/2026, published on Monday and in force today, rewrites the 2025 law and drops the phrase it was famous for. The hospital funding penalties and the disciplinary inquiry go with it, replaced by a discretionary audit and a duty to publish episiotomy and caesarean rates by hospital.

The Portugal Brief 25 Aug 2026

The Castelo de Bode reservoir on the Zezere in central Portugal, still blue water between wooded banks with a concrete water intake tower standing mid-channel

Quercus Opposes Renewing the Panasqueira Mine Licence, Citing More Than a Century of Waste Above Lisbon's Water Supply

The public consultation on a revised environmental licence for Portugal's only working tungsten mine closed on Monday. Quercus filed against it, arguing the file cannot support a decision and that the catchment runs down to the reservoir EPAL treats for 2.6 million people.

The Portugal Brief 24 Aug 2026

Subscribe to The Portugal Brief

Don't miss out on the latest news. Sign up now to get access to the library of members-only articles.

Sign up
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service
Partner with Us
Editorial Standards

The Portugal Brief © 2026. Powered by Ghost

Operated by Thrifty Explorations LLC.

[email protected]