Private healthcare group Lusíadas Saúde is making a major comeback in Faro with a €60 million investment in a state-of-the-art hospital set to open in late 2026. The facility will be built in the Lejana area of the town on a plot covering more than 15,000 square metres across three floors.
The announcement was made by Lusíadas CEO Vasco Antunes Pereira at the Algarve Economic Congress, hosted by the Algarve retailers association ACRAL at Faro’s regional coordination and development commission (CCDR Algarve).
“The Lusíadas Group has invested in the Algarve for several years. We lost our main unit (previous hospital in Faro) seven years ago due to an unsolvable issue. At the time, we started studies into where we should set up a new unit, and decided to keep it in Faro,” Antunes Pereira tells Barlavento newspaper.
According to the CEO, the new hospital will be “highly innovative, with the latest technology. It will be the flagship of our group,” he says, adding that the hospital will feature complex operating theatres, intensive care and intermediate care wards, as well as a “comprehensive mental health unit”.
Lusíadas says it intends to hire local talent, aiming to draw back Algarve doctors and nurses who left for Lisbon or the north years ago. “We want to invest in those who are already here, upskill and reskill local professionals, and support those who wish to return,” Pereira says, insisting the group will only recruit from outside if gaps remain.
The new hospital will not replace Lusíadas’ current operations in Faro. Its two clinics – one near the Municipal Market and another inside Forum Algarve shopping centre – will continue to run independently, with the latter expanding its dental and oral health services. The downtown ambulatory clinic will keep handling less complex treatments.
The CEO also used the announcement to call for closer ties between public and private healthcare, lamenting “a lack of real articulation” despite political speeches about cooperation.
“We don’t feel any animosity about the public sector, and I think I speak for most of our partners and competitors,” Antunes Pereira says. “I’ve been in the health sector for many years and what I see is many politicians speaking about creating these bridges (between the public and private sectors), but then nothing happens,” he laments.
“News programmes in Portugal unfortunately lead with stories about healthcare and a lack of resources, and it is not because this is a structural situation. There are a number of decisions that lead to this,” the CEO says. Pointing to maternity care, he noted how Lusíadas now runs one of the largest maternity units in Portugal – something unheard of a decade ago. “Private groups didn’t have this scale ten years ago. It’s not that public resources disappeared – it’s that the system became disorganised. We want to actively contribute so everyone has better healthcare,” he insisted.
“We are available, and we’ve even supported Faro Hospital with its needs over the years, but what we can contribute is still just a small piece of the bigger picture.”
The new facility will also strengthen connections with the University of Algarve and its Integrated Master’s in Medicine, with the Lusíadas Knowledge Center providing academic and research support.
“We have a strong link to the academy. Our Lusíadas Knowledge Center supports all academic activities of our staff and backs research and study initiatives. We have a dedicated team here in the Algarve, integrated with UAlg, which is fully complementary to our hospital activities. The university is a strategic element for us,” he said.
Lusíadas’ previous hospital in Faro, on Rua Infante D. Henrique, was shut down in December 2018 after Portugal’s health regulator flagged faults in its electrical system. At the time, the group shifted activity to its Faro and Forum Algarve clinics, as well as its hospital in Albufeira.
