Average waiting times for urgent patients at hospitals in the Lisbon region varied at 07:30 today between more than 18 hours at Beatriz Ângelo, in Loures, and one hour at Garcia de Orta, in Almada.
At 22:00 on Wednesday, the average waiting times for urgent patients at hospitals in the Lisbon region ranged from over eight hours at Fernando Fonseca (Amadora-Sintra) to 47 minutes at Garcia de Orta in Almada.
According to data from the National Health Service Portal, consulted by the Lusa news agency, 38 patients with a yellow (urgent) bracelet were at the Beatriz Ângelo hospital’s general emergency service at around 7.30am today, with an average waiting time of 18 hours and 21 minutes, while the recommended time is 60 minutes.
In the general emergency department of Santa Maria hospital, which belongs to the Centro Hospitalar Universitário Lisboa Norte, the average waiting time was 11 hours and 28 minutes (39 people).
At the Fernando Fonseca hospital (Amadora-Sintra), the average waiting time was nine hours and 55 minutes, with 44 people wearing yellow wristbands in the central emergency department at that time.
At the São Francisco Xavier, São José (both in Lisbon) and Garcia de Orta (Almada) hospitals, the waiting time was three hours and 01 minutes (02 people), one hour and 18 minutes (two people) and one hour and 29 minutes (12), respectively.
In the Oporto region, according to information consulted by Lusa, at Santo António Hospital the waiting time for urgent patients was eight hours and 20 minutes, but at around 07:30 there was only one person waiting to be seen.
At S. João Hospital, the average waiting time was one hour and 38 minutes for urgent patients, while at Pedro Hispano, in Matosinhos, the waiting time for urgent patients was three hours and 32 minutes (08 people waiting).
At the Eduardo Santos Silva Hospital in Vila Nova de Gaia, 16 people with yellow wristbands were waiting in the multipurpose emergency room, with a waiting time of two hours and 22 minutes.
The Manchester triage, which makes it possible to assess the patient’s clinical risk and assign a degree of priority, includes five levels: emergent (red bracelet), very urgent (orange), urgent (yellow), not very urgent (green) and non-urgent (blue).
In the case of yellow wristbands, the first service should not take longer than 60 minutes, and in the case of green wristbands, the recommendation is that it should not take longer than 120 minutes (two hours).
