New legislation requires the creation of ‘bunkers’ in nuclear medicine units for equipment emitting radioactive materials.
Loulé’s City Council rejected the Algarve Oncology Centre’s construction project last Tuesday because, as the former director of the Algarve Hospital Centre explained, the project volume had increased due to adaptations to new legislation.
Speaking at the parliamentary Health Committee, Paulo Neves explained that the project’s change was motivated by legislation introduced in 2024, which “requires the creation of ‘bunkers’ for the installation of equipment with radioactive emissions” in nuclear medicine units.
Neves observed, “There must be a reserve bunker, so the area has expanded, and the bunkers must be buried. From the moment they needed to be buried, in our view and as a legal requirement, it fell short of the 4,600 square metres we had requested.”
Also present at the meeting was the previous administration of the Algarve Local Health Unit (ULS), which deemed the land provided by the Faro-Loulé Association of Municipalities to be constructively viable for the implementation of the Oncology Centre in the region and confirmed that funding was available. The municipal councils conveyed their readiness to make the necessary changes to implement the centre on the site.
The Loulé Council rejected the project as the proposed construction area surpassed the capacity anticipated in the Detailed Plan for the Faro-Loulé City Park. Paulo Neves remarked that he did not believe the “bunkers” would count towards the construction volume since they would solely be used to install the machinery required for treating patients on the upper floors.
In light of the Loulé Council’s rejection of the project, which had proposed a review of the Detailed Plan to accommodate the Algarve Oncology Centre, the current chairman of the ULS Board of Directors suggested to the Government that the Southern Reference Oncology Centre (CORS) be integrated into the new Algarve Central Hospital, for which a tender should be launched by the end of the first half of this year.
Tiago Botelho stated that if CORS were completed by the end of 2024, he would not advocate for its inclusion in the new hospital. “I proposed to the Secretary of State for Health Management that she consider it. In my opinion, the most appropriate course of action would be to stop this project as soon as possible for a simple reason: the central hospital has all the equipment that CORS would have”, he stated.
In the parliamentary Health Committee of the Assembly of the Republic, both the Mayor of Loulé, Vítor Aleixo, and the Mayor of Faro, Rogério Bacalhau, reaffirmed their willingness to implement any changes necessary to accommodate the centre. They expressed surprise that, in a process that began in 2021, the project had only been submitted to the local authority in October 2024.
During the session, the PS and PSD deputies exchanged accusations regarding who was responsible for the delay in constructing a centre that would serve 3,500 patients annually, providing a service that is currently unavailable in the south of the country and forcing them to travel to Lisbon or Seville for oncology treatments and examinations.
