Government announces additional financial reinforcement for Portugal’s NHS

The Portuguese Ministry of Health have announced that the government will reinforce the National Health Service (SNS) with over 745 million euros, with a view to reducing the debt and increasing the response and production capacity of the country’s health system.

The decision comes after the state budget suspended investment that was planned for the SNS. 

Of the total amount, 630 million euros are destined to hospitals and 115 million euros to Regional Health Administrations.

The reinforcement, which will take place now, is to pay increases in expenses and part of the accumulated debt which now exceeds 550 million euros. Between January and October this year, the expenditure of the SNS increased by more than 8% compared to the same period last year.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Health, by October the financing of tests for detection of COVID-19 or additional efforts towards the vaccination program involved nearly 30 million medical consultations being carried out in primary health care, in addition to 590,000 surgeries (the highest amount ever) and more than 10 million hospital consultations being carried out.

In August of this year, a reinforcement of 350 million euros was also made, resulting in a total injection of more than 1 billion euros of reinforcement of the SNS in 2021.