Lagos hospital is not alone is trying to run medical services without enough doctors but it is the first area where the local council has denounced the situation as "dramatic" and "unsustainable."
The hospital covers the population of Lagos, Vila do Bispo and Aljezur but is failing, as are many of the regions health units as they all are missing the key ingredient – doctors.
'The current situation in the health service at the hospital in Lagos is increasingly dramatic,' wrote the mayor, Maria Joaquina Matos, in a motion passed unanimously last week by the Lagos council executive.
The council wants to make its problems known publicly, which it has done, but the problem is not just within the Algarve, the lack of doctors in the south and interior of the country is critical with the ministry unable to fulfil its many promises.
The Algarve has a lot to offer as a lifestyle choice but as a career step for doctors, it is step backwards - not a step forwards.
Many doctors see an Algarve posting as a career setback, or at least stagnation rather than a progression.
There are dozens of vacancies for doctors across the Algarve which all offer more money, more holidays and the guaranteed transfer of their children to local schools but this simply is not enough. Of the 73 vacancies announced for the Algarve this year, 31 remained as vacancies.
In the countryside, or ‘interior’, the situation is worse. For 61 vacancies at three hospitals, only nine have been filled.
In Castelo Branco, the local health unit tried to hire 22 doctors, but secured the services of three.
This endemic lack of doctors has led to protocols between some hospitals that now share out their doctors to try in desperation to fill in the gaps, but shipping key medical staff around the country does not have the appearance of a long-term solution.
The problem has been identified, but the answer has eluded successive Ministers of Health.
