Lisbon, May 1, 2025 (Lusa) - The leader of the Portuguese Social Democratic Party (PSD) has argued that the National Health Service is undergoing transformation, despite still facing constraints, while the opposition Socialist Party (PS) leader considered that health is the area where the government has failed most.

Luís Montenegro and Pedro Nuno Santos were in almost complete disagreement on the subject of health in their televised face-to-face debate, broadcast simultaneously by RTP, SIC and TVI from the Carcavelos Campus of the New University of Lisbon on Wednesday evening.

For the leader of the PSD, the current government has put "the health service in transformation, which is reducing the waiting times for appointments and for consultations and surgeries to take place", although "many constraints" remain.

On this point, the prime minister and leader of the Democratic Alliance AD - PSD/CDS-PP coalition stated that the functioning of the health service (SNS) ’"has been severely aggravated over the last eight years, under the responsibility of Pedro Nuno Santos and, now, of the man who is being presented as the PS's great hope for the health sector", Fernando Araújo, former secretary of state and former executive director of the SNS, who heads the socialist list for the Porto constituency.

"I am grateful to Luís Montenegro for mentioning Fernando Araújo here, because he is, in fact, one of the most consensual figures in the health sector in Portuguese society, praised by many right-wing personalities, even, I believe, by the country's presidential candidate supported by the Portuguese Democratic Alliance," responded Pedro Nuno Santos.

The PS leader said that health “is indeed the area where the Portuguese Democratic Alliance government has failed the most”.

"And it is the direct and personal responsibility of Luís Montenegro, who created the expectation among the Portuguese that it would be easy and quick to solve the health problems," claimed the socialist leader.

In the last year, according to the prime minister, the government has improved the pay and career progression of health professionals, reaching an agreement with doctors and, in terms of family health, investing in the creation of more type B and type C family health units.

On the issue of public-private partnerships (PPPs) for the health sector, he considered it proven that they allow for better management and attributed ideological prejudices to the PS.

"In the eight years that preceded us, the [socialist] governments were bound by ideological constraints, which are very close to the political thinking of Pedro Nuno Santos and those who were his privileged partners in government and who are also likely to be part of a hypothetical government solution that he advocates: the Left Bloc or the Portuguese Communist Party," he accused.

Also relevant was the fact that, in this part of the debate, Luís Montenegro acknowledged that, in terms of the programme for general and family medicine, he had promised that, by the end of 2025, he would try to have a response for all priority citizens.

"But I am honest: we were not going to achieve this result by the end of 2025. I want to fulfil this goal as quickly as possible, but I am not going to give a specific date because I do not yet have enough information to do so," he claimed.

This led the PS leader to state that Luís Montenegro “created the expectation among the Portuguese that it would be easy and quick to solve the health problems”.

"He promised family doctors for all patients - and we have more than 50,000 patients without family doctors than we had a year ago".

On public-private partnerships (PPPs) in health, Pedro Nuno Santos accused the Government of wanting to "transfer five hospitals and more than 170 health centres to PPPs without providing the necessary justification".

In contrast, he advocated an alternative path of granting greater management autonomy to hospital administrations.

"I am sure that with greater autonomy and greater management flexibility, our hospitals can be better managed, without having to hand them over to private management," he added.

PMF/AYLS // AYLS

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