New Sintra Hospital will "serve everyone"

The mayor of Sintra, Basílio Horta, said on Monday that the new Sintra Hospital was designed to serve people “regardless of their status,” noting that it was built without any state funding.

The hospital unit was created to “ serve all people , regardless of their condition or status,” said Basílio Horta, during the inauguration of the hospital, integrated into the Local Health Unit (ULS) Amadora-Sintra, which will relieve pressure on the Professor Doutor Fernando Fonseca Hospital (HFF).

The mayor recalled the population growth in the municipality of Sintra, in the district of Lisbon, saying that it “deserved a thorough look” at the health system, since the HFF was already “serving more than 500 thousand” users.

Basílio Horta said that the work cost the municipality around 70 million euros.

" The entire construction was self-financed over a five-year period. We don't receive a cent from Europe or the central government. And that should fill us with pride, especially our taxpayers who paid, because they diverted their money to invest in their health, and they did well, because it's an exceptionally important investment," he emphasized.

The mayor also said that the new Sintra Hospital “is the only [hospital] built in recent years ” in the country.

"All those that were in the budget were not built, and some never even got off the ground. The only one that got off the ground and was built was the one that wasn't in the budget," he emphasized.

In addition to the Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, and the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, the inauguration ceremony was attended by former socialist Health Ministers Adalberto Campos Fernandes, António Correia de Campos and Maria de Belém Roseira.

The new hospital unit will support the Amadora-Sintra Hospital, one of the largest in the Lisbon and Tagus Valley region, and will now handle non-urgent cases in the emergency department.

The new Sintra Hospital, which began construction four years ago, is located in Casal da Cavaleira, in the parish of Algueirão-Mem Martins, with a covered area of 10,500 square meters and an uncovered area of 49,000 m2.

It represents an investment of around 81 million euros, including construction and equipment acquisition, and will benefit 550,000 users.

Sintra Hospital offers outpatient services, outpatient consultations and examinations, a mental health unit, physical rehabilitation medicine, a collection center and complementary diagnostic and therapeutic resources, and an outpatient surgery unit with a surgery and recovery room.

It also has a basic emergency service to handle around 60,000 emergencies, around half of those carried out at the Amadora-Sintra Hospital, 60 inpatient beds, a pharmacy, a sterilization unit and a space for teaching and training.