The Algarve’s business association, ACRAL, regrets the "perpetual" postponement of the construction of a new central hospital for the region and says the current government, just like all the previous ones, is intending to kick the project down the road until after the next general election.
"The new hospital is crucial to the sustainability of tourism in the Algarve: security, including health services, is one of the pillars of the destination's competitiveness: without effective health services the region’s image is degraded," says the president of ACRAL, Álvaro Viegas.
"The contribution of Algarve tourism to national exports, is superior to the contribution of Autoeuropa - this alone justifies this investment which often has been promised and systematically postponed."
The public health service in the Algarve, says the ACRAL leader, "is suffering erosion, largely because of a lack of human resources, as recognised by most professionals in the sector."
"A new, modern, well-equipped hospital with good working conditions would make it much easier to keep professionals in the region and in the public health service, as well as helping to attract professionals from other parts of the country to the Algarve."
"The construction of a Central Hospital of the Algarve has been identified as a ‘priority’ since at least 2006. In 2008 a Portuguese prime minister even laid the first stone. Now we have the ‘possibility’ of a working group being set up in 2018 or 2019 ‘to analyse the matter’ ... this is not acceptable, neither for those who live here nor for those who visit us," concluded Viegas.
On a visit to the Algarve, the Secretary of State for Health, Manuel Delgado, said on Monday that the Government's priorities in the south of the country for 2017 are the hospitals of Évora and Seixal, postponing a decision on a new hospital for the Algarve until the "next legislature."
