The Ministry of Health this Monday explained to the Lusa agency that it is assessing the process of building the new hospital in the West, inherited from the previous government, in order to make a decision, but wants to give it “full priority”.
“The ministry is assessing the progress of construction of a new hospital in the West and all the procedural documents that were transferred to it from the previous government,” the department said in response to the Lusa agency.
The Ministry of Health assured that “the government considers this project to be very relevant for the entire region and will give it the priority it deserves.”
On Thursday, all parliamentary groups said there was an urgency to build a new hospital in the region and questioned the government’s support for previous decisions, with PAN, BE and PS going further to say it should not back down and that it should proceed on the basis that what has already been done.
At this session, the draft resolutions of PAN and BE, recommending that the government maintain previous decisions and continue to develop a plan to restructure existing hospitals, were generally approved and sent to the health commission for specialty evaluation.
Another draft PKP resolution calling for the construction of a new hospital was also approved.
Parliament also considered two petitions: one in defense of the location in Caldas da Rainha, and the other demanding recognition of the legality of the ongoing process.
The construction of a new hospital in Oeste is one of the projects in the planning stage in the health sector included in the “Brief Description of the Transition Period” presented by the government led by António Costa to the current Prime Minister Luis Montenegro.
According to the document, which Lusa had access to, the profile and location of the assistance were approved in June 2023, “while exploring a funding model” that was handed over to consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) in February this year.
The profile of medical care includes a hospital with 467 beds, of which 381 are for general hospitals, 74 outpatient clinics, 17 chronic dialysis stations, a multidisciplinary day hospital and departments of pediatrics, oncology and mental health.
The plan is to build a 10-room operating theatre, four for outpatient clinics and three for the emergency department and maternity ward, with nine maternity and neonatal wards with nine beds and six incubators.
The new hospital will have 16 medical specialties, three of which are missing from the current Western Local Health Unit (ULS) hospitals – endocrinology, nephrology and rheumatology.
As for surgical specialties, the existing six are retained.
The four existing diagnostic and therapeutic specialties are to be increased to five with the inclusion of pathological anatomy.
The document also involves the creation of a technological and biomedical center to support outpatient care with laboratories for clinical pathology, pathological anatomy, immunohemotherapy and imaging.
According to the document, the new hospital should cover the area of influence of Caldas da Rainha, Obidos, Peniche, Bombarral, Torres Vedras, Cadaval, Lorignan and part of Mafra, excluding the parishes in the municipalities of Alcobaça and Mafra, currently served, and the municipality of Nazaré.
The document formed the basis for the decision to build the future hospital in Bombarral on a 54-hectare plot of land, given its central position in relation to the municipalities it would serve and the size of the land allowing for expansion of the new hospital. unit if needed in the future.
The selection of Bombarral was based on accessibility criteria, such as its proximity to Exit 11 of Highway 8 (which crosses the entire West) and the train station.
The new hospital will replace the existing branches of the Western Local Health Center in Caldas da Rainha, Torres Vedras and Peniche, which serve 300 thousand inhabitants of the municipalities of Caldas da Rainha, Obidos, Peniche, Bombarral, Torres Vedras, Cadaval and Lorignan and part municipalities of Alcobaça and Mafra.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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