Patients visiting Portuguese hospitals with urgent cases are having to wait more than nine hours in some cities until they can be admitted into hospitals.

The government’s National Health Service – the SNS – reported on Monday that many hospitals in the capital Lisbon are struggling with high demands and shortages in labour.

Urgent patients at the Amadora Sintra Hospital in the outskirts of Lisbon faced an average of eight hour waiting periods before they were able to see a medical professional.

But the excessively long wait times are not just limited to Lisbon. In Coimbra and Portimão, nine hour wait times for urgent patients were also reported. The situation there slightly improved later in the day after local health officials activated contingency plans to better manage the situation.

The delays are not just affecting needing patients, but also other state services. Mario Conde, a Fire Brigade Commander in Amadora says the delays are suffocating their resources.  

“We have some constraints in the emergency service for the population because we have a lot of services in the area of ​​hospital support and having an ambulance at the hospital for 40 minutes is a long time and we can hardly provide quick and effective assistance with this waiting time because there is a lack of resources for all the people.”

The increased demand on Portuguese health facilities is due to a recent outbreak of bird flu. The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) reported an outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) strains among poultry on a farm near Lisbon on Monday.

The H5N1 strain was detected in a flock of more than 55,000 birds in the village of São João das Lampas, approximately 40 km away from the capital. The outbreak caused the death of almost 280 birds according to the Paris-based WOAH who were citing Portuguese authorities.

The spread of avian influenza, commonly referred to as bird flu, has raised concerns among governments and the poultry industry after proving deadly in recent years. The spread of the virus in the past has also disrupted supply chains significantly, resulting in higher food prices as well as the risk of human transmission.

“The flu virus is on the increase, we’re not at the peak yet, we’re still in a growing phase. And the fact that we have a low vaccination rate under the age of 85 means that the virus can circulate more easily,” says Gustavo Tato Borges from the Public Health Medical Association.

The SNS did however report later on Monday that wait times were slowly going down. Portuguese officials say that regardless of the wait times, all patients seeking medical attention were receiving treatment eventually.

“There are more emergency rooms open, we currently have 8 clinics open in the Coimbra region, we have more inpatient beds for respiratory patients and this is what is allowing us to have shorter waiting times. Patients are being reorganized, but even though there is a waiting time for the first medical observation, all the patients in our care are being treated,” says Claudia Nazareth, Clinical Director of the Coimbra Local Health Unit.

But the situation remains challenging, as the Portuguese health service is not operating at full capacity.

Six emergency services were closed on Monday, while another 13 services were reserved for internal emergencies, only working on cases referred by the National Emergency Medical Institute (INEM) and the SNS line.

The closed services were mostly in the Lisbon and Tagus Valley region, with only one in the centre, which only deals with obstetrics, gynaecology and paediatric emergencies.

OTTAWA, Canada— With Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement on Monday morning that he will step down as Liberal Party leader, whoever succeeds him will face Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre, whose Conservative Party has nearly three times the support of committed voters (47% compared to 18% for the Liberals) in this year’s general election.

First elected to the House of Commons in 2004, 45-year-old, Calgary-born Poilievre, 45, became leader of the Canadian Conservatives in 2022 and has seen his party grow in popularity as Canadians have grown tired of 53-year-old Trudeau, whose Liberals formed government in 2015.

“Bring home the Canadian dream” has been one of the Conservatives’ major themes, and Poilievre has cast the Liberals as governing with ‘an extremely radical ideology,’ which he described as “basically authoritarian socialism,” in a recent 90-minute interview with popular podcast host Jordan Peterson.

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“People are sick and tired of grandiosity,” said Poilievre. “Horrendous, utopian wokeism” serves, he said, “egotistical personalities on top,” rather than “common people.”

Trudeau has said that Poilievre wants to “make Canada great again,” comparing the Tory leader to incoming U.S. President Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” mantra.

But while Poilievre’s populist messaging has generated comparisons to Trump’s political approach, the Canadian Conservative leader has pushed back the president-elect’s recent comments about making Canada the 51st state.

“I have the strength and the smarts to stand up for this country and my message to incoming President Trump is that first and foremost, Canada will never be the 51st state of the U.S.,” Poilievre said in an interview with Canadian broadcaster, CTV News, before Christmas.

Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with media outside Rideau Cottage on Monday, Jan. 6, in Ottawa. (AP/Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

The incoming Trump administration will almost assuredly deal with a Poilievre government as the Conservatives are poised to win the next Canadian election, which could come as early as this spring. When the House of Commons resumes sitting on March 24, the opposition parties are likely to defeat the minority Liberal government in a vote of no-confidence, which would trigger a national vote.

In his Peterson interview, Poilievre acknowledged that Trump — who has proposed a 25% tariff against Canadian exports — “negotiates very aggressively, and he likes to win.” But as prime minister, the Conservative leader said that he would seek “a great deal that will make both countries safer, richer and stronger.”

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Canada Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre holds a news conference in a hotel ballroom in Ottawa, on Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024.  (ustin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

Poilievre said that he would accelerate approvals to build oil refineries, liquefied natural gas plants and nuclear facilities, and increase its electricity surplus with the U.S.

He also told Peterson that Canada sells its oil and gas to the U.S. at “enormous discounts,” which he characterized as a “ripoff,” in which “Canada is ripping itself off.”

A Poilievre-led government would also embark on “the biggest crackdown on crime in Canadian history” and that “habitual offenders will not get out of jail anymore,” the Conservative leader said.

On foreign affairs, the Canadian Conservatives’ 2023 policy document states that it would, as government, “take the required steps to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S. to close the gaps relating to illegal entries in Canada,” and that the Conservative Party recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Canada’s embassy in Israel is currently in Tel Aviv.

Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
|Photo: David Kawai/Bloomberg via Getty Images.  Canadian opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, (R)
Photo: Graham Hughes/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Getty Images)

In a statement released in response to Trudeau’s resignation on Monday, Poilievre said that “this changes nothing” and that a Conservative Canadian government would “take back control of our border, take back control of immigration, take back control of spending, deficits and inflation. Take back control of our streets by locking up criminals, banning drugs, treating addiction and stopping gun smugglers.”

The Conservatives, added Poilievre, “would secure borders, rearm our forces, restore our freedom and put Canada First.”