The president of APHP, Oscar Gaspar, classified the ordinance on the participation of medicines for obesity as “absolutely discriminatory”, according to the association’s statement.
© Lusa
22/10/2026
by
Lusa
O president of the management of the Portuguese Association of Private Hospitalization (APHP), Oscar Gaspar, today classified the ordinance on the participation of drugs for obesity as “absolutely discriminatory”.
Oscar Gaspar, who spoke at the 2nd Clinical Meetings of APHP on Obesity, considered that the ordinance published today does not treat all citizens in the same way and will prevent many from accessing medicines, according to a statement from the association.
The ordinance “has the virtue, for the first time, to participate in the drugs for obesity”, but “fails when it concentrates in some hospitals of the SNS [National Health Service] its prescription, which will greatly increase waiting lists and waste the installed capacity of the system in this diagnosis”, says the statement.
In this sense, the person responsible called on the government to correct the terms of the ordinance “for the sake of fairness and non-discrimination of patients”.
According to the ordinance, which enters into force in February 2027, the State will participate in 15% of the drugs for obesity to users integrated in a specific plan of follow-up in hospitals, provided that prescribed by endocrinologists, internal medicine doctors and pediatricians.
In order to have the right to participate in these drugs, users must be followed in the Center for Non-surgical Hospital Care of the Multidisciplinary Obesity Team (EMO) of their Local Health Unit (ULS).
Family doctors also considered today that the ordinance will restrict patients' access to treatment, exclude primary care and block hospital visits.
In statements to the agency Lusa, the president of the Portuguese Association of General and Family Medicine (APMGF), Nuno Jacinto, recalled that many Local Health Units (ULS) lack endocrinologists and internal medicine doctors, two of the specialties authorized to prescribe this medication.
It has still considered that it does not make sense to exclude primary health care, and family doctors, from the possibility of prescribing these drugs, advancing that “referring all obese patients with therapeutic indication” for a hospital consultation will “submit these consultations with thousands of users”.
According to a statement by APHP, which cites the Action Roadmap to Accelerate Obesity Prevention and Control in Portugal, released in 2025 by the General Health Directorate (DGS), “obesity is one of the main public health problems in Portugal”, affecting “28.7% of Portuguese adults, and more than half of the population is overweight (67.6%)”.
According to the same Roadmap, obesity represents “10% of the direct costs associated with spending on health care in Portugal, 207 euros per capita per year and 3% of gross domestic product (GDP)” and indirect costs to society, associated with loss of productivity due to illness or premature death.