Lisbon. Ambulance League calls for understanding for protest Monday

A Portuguese League of Ambulances (LPA) today called for the understanding of motorists and population for the traffic conditioning that the slow march, protest, of the companies transport of patients can cause next Monday in Lisbon.

This appeal follows the announcement that LPA made on Thursday that the patient transport companies will hold a protest in Lisbon on the 26th with about 100 ambulances and other vehicles affected by the activity, in a slow march that will cross the 25th of April Bridge and will reach the streets of the capital.

The protest was announced in a statement, in which LPA indicated that the demonstration intends to alert the government and public opinion to the serious economic situation of the sector and to the lack of conditions for companies to carry out their activity.

Today, also in a statement the LPA released the concentration site, which will be in the South Rotunda of Almada, by 7:00 a.m. on Monday morning, and the slow march path.

Thus, at 08:00 in the morning, according to the forecast, the slow march begins, which will cross the Bridge 25 April and has as its first destination the Park Eduardo VII, in Lisbon, point of convergence of vehicles and protesters.

Then, protesters and vehicles follow the streets of Lisbon for the Ministries of Health and Infrastructure and Housing, Assembly of the Republic and Official Residence of the Prime Minister, in São Bento, by the order mentioned.

In São Bento, the organizers will deliver a memorandum with the main demands and proposals of the LPA.

Therefore, the League “calls for the understanding of motorists and the population for possible traffic conditioning” and ensures that the initiative “will be carried out peacefully, with respect to the guidance of the authorities and safeguarding the movement of vehicles on emergency mission”.

“We don’t want to stop transporting patients. We want the government to give us the conditions to continue doing so”, said the league, in the note released on Thursday, specifying that the slow march aims to be a protest “against the exclusion of fuel support, the prices imposed by the State and delays in SNS payments”.

The LPA underlines that this demonstration “comes after months of institutional contacts, requests for hearings and successive warnings addressed to the government and to various public authorities, without satisfactory solutions to the structural problems affecting this activity have been found up to now,” he adds.

It also stresses that companies that “every day ensure the transportation of thousands of Portuguese people” for consultations, tests, hemodialysis, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, physiotherapy and other treatments “are facing increasing costs, administratively conditioned prices and delays in paying the services provided to the National Health Service”.

According to LPA, the publication of Decree-Law No 199/2026 of October 07, which establishes extraordinary support to compensate for the increase in fuel prices in various sectors, is also not alien to this protest, on the contrary, because the measure “came to aggravate the feeling of injustice among entrepreneurs in the transport of patients”.

“ While the support covers activities such as taxi transport and patient transport vehicles from the humanitarian associations of firefighters, private companies licensed for the same activity continue without an equivalent framework ", highlights.

This adds, according to the note, the fact that patient transport prices are subject to administratively established values, which limits the capacity of companies to reflect the increase in fuel costs, wages, maintenance, insurance and purchase of vehicles.

Finally, “many companies face significant delays in payments by SNS institutions and have been forced to bear the service costs already incurred for months,” he said.

The Liga Portuguesa de Ambulâncias calls for concrete and urgent measures for the sector, namely the immediate inclusion of patient transport companies in extraordinary fuel support, on equal terms with the other operators, the revision of patient transport prices, adjusting them to the reality of operational costs and ensuring the economic sustainability of the activity, as well as the regularization of late payments by the SNS institutions and effective compliance with deadlines.

In addition, the LPA requires the opening of “an effective dialogue with the government, with concrete commitments and a timetable for solving the identified problems”.