On Tuesday this week the new Cascais hospital, Hospital de Cascais Dr. José de Almeida, in Alcabideche, which has been described by Cascais Mayor as “the most important project of the past few decades”, was inaugurated.

During the inauguration ceremony Mayor António Capucho (PSD/CDS-PP), told the press “this is a most important medical facility and the most decisive investment that has been made in the country in the past few decades”.

“Problems will not end because they are not restricted to only a hospital, but this precious instrument will afford the population its basic needs”.

António Capucho addressed the past “eight years of struggles” and recounted the fight that was faced to replace the previous “degraded and ill-equipped” infrastructure and create a new hospital, officially inaugurated this week, two years after construction started, in a ceremony attended by Prime Minister José Sócrates, Health Minister Ana Jorge and Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos.

With a catchment area of 285,336 inhabitants, the new Cascais Hospital will cater for medical specialties, surgery, and offer mother and baby care as well as being equipped with a medical-surgical emergency department and an Intensive Care and Recovery unit.

Its mother and baby care department will serve all of Cascais’ parishes plus eight Sintra parishes, these being Algueirão Mem Martins, Colares, Pêro Pinheiro, São João das Lampas, São Martinho, Santa Maria and São Miguel, São Pedro de Penaferrim and Terrugem.

On a yearly basis the hospital is expected to carry out 235,000 consultations, 98,000 admittances, and 10,800 surgical procedures.

Other medical specialties the unit will cover include internal medicine, cardiology, neurology, gastroenterology, pneumology, dermatology, paediatrics and psychiatry. General surgery, orthopaedics, urology, ears, nose and throat, ophthalmology, obstetrics and gynaecology are other specialties the hospital will cater for.

It comprises 272 beds, two per room, six operating theatres, 10 birthing rooms, and 26 consultation rooms.