The noise from planes landing and taking off from Lisbon airport is damaging the functioning of the Júlio de Matos Hospital, where people with mental health problems are treated. Exposure to noise at this hospital – which is very close to Humberto Delgado airport – has been monitored by teams from the then Lisbon Psychiatric Hospital Centre and now the São José Local Health Unit, in partnership with Portugal’s airports managing company, ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal. Windows have already been replaced in a bid to minimise the problems, but noise remains “a major constraint on the desirable functioning” of the hospital, says the São José Health Unit, stressing that this constraint has “a particular effect” because it is a hospital that primarily treats people with mental health problems.
