Ambulance delays at Algarve hospitals are “putting lives at risk” – firefighters and municipalities – Portugal Resident

Ambulances across the Algarve are being kept waiting for hours outside hospital emergency departments, leaving fewer vehicles available to respond to 112 calls and putting patients at risk, the Algarve Firefighters Federation and AMAL – the Algarve Intermunicipal Community have warned.

In a joint statement, the two organisations say the growing problem has become “structural” and is seriously undermining the region’s pre-hospital emergency response.

Firefighters and municipalities in the Algarve say ambulances should return to service as soon as patients are handed over at hospital. Instead, crews are increasingly being forced to remain outside emergency departments for prolonged periods while waiting for patients to be formally transferred to clinical staff.

During that time, the ambulances are unavailable to respond to new emergencies, they point out.

According to the organisations, each delayed ambulance means one less vehicle available to attend cardiac arrests, road traffic accidents or other life-threatening incidents.

“While an ambulance remains stopped outside an emergency department, a life could be (lost) waiting for an ambulance,” the entities say.

The issue is particularly acute in the Algarve, where the population swells during the tourist season, placing additional pressure on both hospitals and emergency services.

The shortage of available ambulances often forces emergency dispatchers to request vehicles from neighbouring municipalities, increasing response times and leaving wider areas with reduced emergency cover, they say.

The organisations argue that the knock-on effect extends beyond medical emergencies, affecting firefighters’ ability to respond to road accidents requiring extrication, search and rescue operations, emergency door openings and other civil protection incidents.

To illustrate the scale of the problem, the Algarve Firefighters Federation and AMAL have collected data from fire brigades across the region, including the total number of ambulance retention hours, average waiting times, longest recorded delays and the total number of incidents.

Ambulances wait two hours outside hospital A&Es on average

Ambulances across the Algarve are being kept waiting for more than two hours on average outside hospital emergency departments, with one crew delayed for as long as eight hours, according to figures released by the Algarve Firefighters Federation and AMAL.

Data collected from fire brigades across the region throughout the first 20 days of July shows that some corps have lost close to 70 operational hours because ambulances remained at hospital while waiting to hand patients over to clinical staff. The Faro brigade reported 69 hours and 47 minutes of cumulative delays, while the Tavira brigade recorded 67 hours, the Portimão brigade ‘lost’ 48 hours and 55 minutes and in Olhão, ambulances remained stopped for 44 hours and 50 minutes.

While acknowledging the pressure facing healthcare professionals within the SNS (National Health Service), the organisations argue that hospital overcrowding should not come at the expense of emergency medical response.

“Firefighters’ ambulances cannot become extensions of hospital emergency departments,” they said, calling for urgent measures to reduce handover times and improve coordination between regional health authority ULS Algarve, INEM emergency institute and local fire brigades.

The organisations also stressed that fire commanders should not be held responsible for delays in emergency responses when ambulances are unavailable because they remain tied up at hospitals.

“The ambulances exist to save lives,” the statement concludes. “Human life cannot wait.”