The Ministry of Health is evaluating the construction of the new hospital in Oeste

The Ministry of Health explained that it is evaluating the process of building the new hospital in the west, which it inherited from the previous government, to make a decision, but it wants to give it “full priority.”
The authority said in response to Lusa, “The ministry is evaluating the workflow of the new hospital in the west and all the procedural documents that were transferred to it from the previous government.”
The Ministry of Health confirmed that “the government considers this project of great importance to the entire region and will give it the priority it deserves.”
Last Thursday, all parliamentary groups claimed the urgent need to build the new hospital in the area and questioned the government on whether or not it would maintain previous decisions. The National Action Party, the Labor Party and the Socialist Party went further by saying which should not back down and which should… To follow him. On what has already been accomplished.
In this session, draft resolutions submitted by PAN and BE recommending that the government maintain previous resolutions and proceed with the current hospital restructuring plan were generally approved and sent to the Health Commission for evaluation in the specialty.
Another draft resolution from the Communist Party calling for the construction of the new hospital was also approved.
Parliament also considered two petitions, one defending the site in Caldas da Rainha and the other demanding recognition of the validity of the ongoing operation.
The construction of the new hospital in Oeste is one of the pieces of equipment in the health project phase included in the “Transition Summary” handed over by the government led by António Costa to the current Prime Minister, Luis Montenegro.
According to the document, which Lusa had access to, the aid file and its website were approved in June 2023, “with consideration of the financing model”, which was handed over to the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) in February this year.
The care file indicates a hospital with 467 beds, including 381 general hospital beds, 74 outpatient consulting offices, 17 chronic dialysis stations, and a multi-purpose day hospital with pediatric, oncology and mental health specialties.
It is planned to establish an operating room that includes 10 rooms, four of which are designated for outpatient clinics and three for emergency and maternity cases, along with nine maternity and neonatal rooms with nine beds and six incubators.
The new hospital will have 16 medical specialties, three of which are not present in the existing Western Local Health Unit (ULS) hospitals – endocrinology, nephrology and rheumatology. Regarding surgical specialties, it maintains the existing six specialties. The current four diagnostic and therapeutic specialties should be increased to five, with pathology included.
The document also proposes the establishment of a technology and biomedical center to support outpatient and inpatient care, with laboratories for clinical pathology, histopathology, immunotherapy and imaging.
According to the document, the new hospital should cover the area of ​​influence of Caldas da Rainha, Óbidos, Peniche, Bombaral, Torres Vedras, Cadaval, Lorraine and part of Mafra, with the exception of the parishes in the current municipalities of Alcobaca and Mafra. Servants, and the municipality of Nazareth.
The document served as the basis for the decision to build the future hospital in Bombaral, on a plot of land of 54 hectares, taking into account its centrality to the municipalities it will serve and the size of the land that would allow the expansion of the new hospital. Unity, if that is the case in the future.
Bombaral was chosen based on accessibility criteria, such as its proximity to Exit 11 of Interstate 8 (which traverses the entire West) and the railway station.
The new hospital should replace the existing units in Caldas da Rainha, Torres Vedras and Peniche of the Local Health Unit of the West, which serve 300,000 inhabitants in the municipalities of Caldas da Rainha, Óbidos, Peniche, Bombaral, Torres Vedras, Cadaval, Lurinha and part of the municipalities of Alcobaca and Mafra.