At the Centro Hospitalar Universitário de Lisboa Central (CHULC), which includes hospitals São José, Curry Cabral, D. Estefânia, Santa Marta, Capuchos and Alfredo da Costa Maternity Hospital, the number of patients hospitalised via emergency care increased “almost double in relation to what is the norm”.

"For each emergency, the number of people who are hospitalised has increased a lot", said Paulo Espiga, executive member of the Board of Directors of CHULC, adding that they are "complicated patients" that imply "a lot of care" and hospitalisation.

"If Covid-19 continues to rise then this pressure will be even greater because they are beds that we will have to remove to other areas, but at the moment the pressure we have is from non-Covid patients", he stressed.

The Emergency Department of the Centro Hospitalar Universitário Lisboa Norte (CHULN), which includes the Santa Maria and Pulido Valente hospitals, has also been experiencing a greater influx of seriously ill patients.

Although there are still patients with green and blue bracelets in the emergency room (non-urgent cases), there is “a change in that profile compared to the past”, said the clinical director of CHULN, Luís Pinheiro.

“We already have a predominance that sometimes surpasses 70% of yellow and orange patients, representing more complex patients (…) unlike the previous history where they were more or less 50%, or sometimes less”, he said, stressing that they are patients who “require a longer and more complex type of care and assistance”.