PS wants to include Western hospitals and Leiria in the State Budget

O parliamentary group of the PS opposed the exclusion in the state budget to 2027 investments for the construction of the West Hospital and for the requalification and expansion of the current hospital of Leiria, which had proposed.

“ We consider the omission of these investments in the state budget proposal to be serious and we have received contradictory information from the government on this matter, but the PS will not fail to respond to what is essential for the people and will do everything to include these proposals during the discussion in the specialty ", said the parliamentary leader of the PS, Eurico Brilhante Dias, quoted in a press release today sent.

For the Socialist MEP, “the regional strategies of this Government in the area of Health are not understood”.

The PS parliamentary group presented a proposal to change the State Budget to 2027 to include the construction of the new West Hospital and the timing and investments for the requalification and expansion of the current Hospital de Leiria.

For socialists, they are “essential investments to respond to regional needs, reduce territorial asymmetries and improve equitable access to health care, strengthen the care capacity of the National Health Service, improve the working conditions of professionals and ensure a more effective and efficient response to the needs of populations”, is mentioned in the amendment proposed by the PS.

However, both investments are not included in the proposal for a State Budget for 2027, and it is “essential to ensure that the investments previously planned and assumed are not compromised”.

On September 15, the Lusa agency reported that the Local Health Unit (ULS) of the Leiria Region wants to build a third tower in the Hospital de Santo André, in the district capital, which is “bending through the seams”.

“(...) We're bursting through the seams. Our ULS is one of the largest in the country, it currently covers a universe of 420,000 users, with this Hospital de Santo André being inaugurated 31 years ago and at the time scaled for half of this population ", said the chairman of the Board of Directors of ULS, Manuel José Carvalho.

The area of influence of the ULS of the Region of Leiria corresponds to the municipalities of Alcobaça, Batalha, Leiria, Marinha Grande, Nazaré, Ourém, Pombal and Porto de Mós. It comprises three hospitals (Leiria, Pombal and Alcobaça) and 10 health centers.

With regard to the new hospital in the West, several municipalities in the region have been asking the government to speed up a definitive decision on location.

During the election campaign for the local elections of October 2025, at a dinner-committee in Caldas da Rainha, the Prime Minister and leader of the PSD said that the government suspended “the process that was under way” by the former PS government and is evaluating the process.

The equipment should have as its area of influence the Caldas da Rainha, Óbidos, Peniche, Bombarral, Torres Vedras, Cadaval and Lourinhã.

In 2023, the then Minister of Health, Manuel Pizarro (PS), announced that the new hospital of the West would be built in Quinta do Falcão, Bombarral, in the district of Leiria, taking into account its centrality in relation to the municipalities it will serve and the size of the land that allowed the expansion of the new unit, if necessary.

The choice of Bombarral was also supported by accessibility criteria, such as the proximity to exit 11 of Highway 8 (which crosses the whole West) and the railway station.

The new hospital should replace the units of Caldas da Rainha and Peniche, in the district of Leiria, and Torres Vedras, in the district of Lisbon, and serve about 300,000 inhabitants of these municipalities and those of Bombarral, Cadaval and Lourinhã.