Healthcare

The Ordem dos Medicos (Medical Association) wants a nationwide assessment of how well Portugal's hospitals would withstand a major earthquake, plus regular disaster drills, warning that a quake-damaged hospital becomes 'a catastrophe within a catastrophe' just when patients need it most.

Portugal has created a dedicated SNS career for dental doctors, published Tuesday in the Diário da República after a unanimous parliamentary vote. It gives the roughly 150 dentists in the public system proper grades and contracts for the first time, ending years of recibos-verdes precarity.

A baby girl was born in a firefighters' ambulance on the A9 on Monday, unable to reach a maternity ward because the nearest one had closed. INEM says ambulance births in Portugal rose from 28 in 2024 to 60 in 2025 as obstetric emergencies concentrate into fewer, larger units.