The Algarve’s elusive Central Hospital project is set to go back out to public tender, nearly two decades after the project was first announced.
Prime Minister Luís Montenegro told Parliament on Thursday that the Council of Ministers will approve the resolution launching the construction tender on Friday, calling the hospital a “structural project” for the region, on a par with major national health investments such as Lisbon’s Hospital de Todos os Santos.
The announcement came on the same day the government was grappling with a deepening medical emergency crisis, which has seen three people die in 24 hours while waiting for an ambulance and prompted the government to announce the “largest investment in over a decade” in new ambulances and emergency vehicles for INEM, the national medical emergency institute.
The new Algarve hospital is planned for the Parque das Cidades, next to the Algarve Stadium built for the Euro 2004, on land shared by the municipalities of Faro and Loulé – a location chosen almost 20 years ago.
The decision comes weeks after the project file reached the desk of Health Minister Ana Paula Martins. According to the ECO/Local Online website, the assessment involved several Algarve entities and now hinges on a key choice: whether the hospital will be fully or partially managed through a public-private partnership (PPP).
José Apolinário, president of the Algarve’s Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR), welcomed the announcement, saying the project enjoys broad regional consensus.
“It’s excellent news for the Algarve,” he told ECO, noting that the hospital has suffered “several false starts” since it was first included in the regional planning framework in 2007.
Apolinário, who was mayor of Faro when the first tender was launched in 2008, said the decision was “an act of justice for the region” after years of delays and unfulfilled promises.
The original project, launched under former prime minister José Sócrates, envisaged a 549-bed hospital, including palliative care, with ten operating theatres and dozens of outpatient facilities. The investment was estimated at €250 million, with construction, equipment and maintenance covered by a PPP, and completion forecast for 2013.
Instead, the project stalled through the financial bailout years, the COVID-19 pandemic and shifting political priorities. In 2022, then health minister Marta Temido formally cancelled the original PPP process, promising a fresh tender.
Now, nearly 20 years after the first announcement – and without a single stone laid – the government says the Algarve Central Hospital is finally moving forward once again.
