The emergency department services at Hospital Fernando da Fonseca, in Amadora-Sintra, are facing wait times exceeding 12 hours for patients classified as urgent. This situation affects patients who need urgent care but are not considered emergencies.
The pressure in these emergency departments is mainly due to the shortage of doctors and nurses in the hospital teams. Healthcare professionals are overwhelmed by the growing demand for emergency care.
The lack of a family doctor for most residents in the region also contributes to the increased pressure on emergency departments. Many patients without a family doctor turn to hospital emergency rooms for care that should be provided in primary care settings.
The hospital has been struggling with high demand that exceeds its response capacity, worsened by the scarcity of available human resources to attend to all patients within reasonable timeframes.
