Luís Montenegro: Government had already announced a new Lisbon hospital in 2017 and “they said it is fixed ready in 2022”
“And it’s not worth going to sand for the eyes of the Portuguese. Even this week with pomp and circumstance, it was even necessary to a Council of Ministers in a hurry at the fair at the end of the day, because, as they marked a strength in the PSD, they wanted to set an agenda for the debate the next day… They held a Council of Ministers in a hurry, Tuesday at the end of the day, when they had a Thursday Monday morning, for what? See if, to announce that they are going to build a hospital in Lisbon“, declared today Luis Montenegronew leader of the PSD, at the Festa de Chão da Lagoa do PSD/Madeira.
“It’s more or less like the one in Funchal. It’s the umpteenth time they’ve announced it. The last time they announced it was in 2017 and said that get ready in 2022. Now it’s 2022 and say you’ll be ready in 2028. This is socialism,” she accused.
referred to the announcementon the 19th of July, from which the Government awarded the construction of the new Hospital de Lisboa Oriental. “The Minister of Health Marta Temido, and the Secretary of State for the Treasury, João Nuno Mendes, designate the joint order for the award of the new Hospital de Lisboa Oriental (HLO), which will be built under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) regime” , is informed in a statement on the Government page.
“The HLO, which will be built on a total area of 180,000 m² in the Marvila areacan handle most of the activity of the Centro Hospitalar Universitário de Lisboa Central”, it is specified in the same statement. 875 beds and devices from all the specialties currently existing at the Centro Hospitalar Universitário de Lisboa Central, growing as specialties in Rheumatology, Nuclear Medicine and Radionology, there is a reinforced connection to the Faculty with a strong teaching and research component”.
“The reorganization and resizing of the hospital offer in the health region of Lisbon and Tagus Valley will provide a better access to health care a significant part of the first city of Lisbon, in line, in the Lisbon Region, in line with Vale do Tejo in line and, also, as an end-of-line hospital for the Alentejo and Algarve, as the second population of the city for popularity inequalities in access to differentiated health and education qualities”, it concludes.
The value of the construction and the data of the beginning of the construction were not disclosed by the Government, but a SIC found out think the”goal is to have the hospital ready in 2026“.
It is important to underline, from the outset, two inaccuracies in Montenegro’s speech: first, the Extraordinary Council of Ministers of 19 July did not serve to exclusively announce that “they are going to build a hospital in Lisbon”, for example, the approval of the “compromise agreement to be signed between the Government and the National Association of Portuguese Municipalitiesthat the municipalities are ready for the means of education and fulfill their limitless goal for the health process; in 2028“, or do not even indicate a completion date, although SIC has found that, “if everything goes as planned”, it should start operating no year 2026.
As for the first announcement in 2017, confirm it, more precisely on August 1 of that year. “The construction of the Hospital Lisboa Oriental, based on a Public-Private Partnership (PPP), 432 million euros goes to the State, paid over 27 years. Added to this value is the 100 million euros to be disbursed by the Ministry of Health to equip the new complex that will add the six hospitals of the Centro Hospitalar Lisboa Central (CHLC). Upon meeting the deadlines, the hospital will start operating in January 2023“, reported the newspaper “Público” that same day, with information that was also published on the government website.
“It was already known that the PPP, to be celebrated to 30 years, will allow the State delegated to a private partner to carry out construction (scheduled for the first three years of the contract) and maintenance. This Tuesday, in a presentation of the new hospital, the Secretary of State for Health provoked the contours of this partnership. At first, ‘there are no guarantees [de financiamento] of the State’, said Manuel Delgado. It is the private partner – to be selected in a international public tender to be launched this summer – which has to start with the 300 euros for the construction of the three million buildings that will make up the new hospital. (…) After three years of construction, the Government starts to pay a annual income of 16 million euros to the private partner, over 27 years. At the end of this period, 300 million of the work and 132 million in interest are paid”, he informed.
In the same article, it is also recalled that “the construction of a new hospital in Lisbon was taken for granted in 2008, the date on which the Socialist Government launched an international tender. In 2010, an award proposal arrived, but three years later the tender was cancelled. The project was recovered in January of this year and the Secretary of State now assumes that the start of the work in 2020 is ‘a political bet and a commitment that cannot be postponed‘ of the socialist government“.
Despite one more slight inaccuracy – it was due to go live “in January 2023”, not 2022 – overall we classify Montenegro’s claim as truth. The construction of the new Hospital de Lisboa Oriental had already been announced in 2017, and the Secretary of State for Health then guaranteed the “unavoidable commitment” to start the work in 2020. By 2022, however, new ad, new deadline.
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