At around 09:00 today, patients at Hospital Amadora-Sintra faced significant waiting times according to Lusa. Fifteen patients triaged with the yellow wristband, indicating urgent status, had to wait up to 13 hours and four minutes for an initial assessment, while the four patients deemed very urgent (orange wristband) faced a 28-minute wait.
In Lisbon’s Hospital Santa Maria, 12 urgent patients experienced a wait time of seven hours and 12 minutes for first evaluation. Meanwhile, at Hospital São José, also in Lisbon, six patients in the general emergency department had a waiting period of two hours and 19 minutes.
At Hospital Beatriz Ângelo in Loures, the SNS portal indicated that at 09:00, 10 urgent patients waited approximately four hours and 15 minutes for a first observation.
The triage system recommends that very urgent cases (orange wristband) be attended to within 10 minutes, urgent cases (yellow) within 60 minutes, and less urgent cases (green) within 120 minutes.
The SNS Portal explains that “the average waiting time is calculated from the time elapsed since a patient entered the current phase (waiting for triage, waiting for first observation, or under observation).”
Health authorities urge patients to contact the National Health Service Contact Center – SNS24 (808242424) by phone before heading to the hospital emergency room to avoid unnecessary visits.
