Until September, 92 thousand non-resident foreigners had used the SUS. The average cost per service is around 112 euros. All things considered, the debt could even end up exceeding 15 million euros.
Since 2021, more than 330,000 non-resident foreigners have accessed SUS emergency services, according to . From this number, almost 43% (about 141 thousand) were not covered by health protocols or insurance that guarantee payment for the care provided.
The value used as a reference in the SUS for an emergency episode is 112 euros for each service. Just this year, By September, 92,000 people in this condition had already benefited from the SUS.
The Observer questioned some Local Health Units about the costs associated with caring for these people.
The ULS Almada-Seixal, for example, the largest in Setúbal (and which is part of the Garcia de Orta Hospital), is the one that has the largest debt: R$338 thousand, followed by ULS in Coimbra, which is the largest in the country, with 318 thousand euros.
In the case of ULS do Algarve, the debt reaches 273 thousand euros. At ULS in Santa Maria, in Lisbon, it is 254 thousand euros. At ULS on the Alentejo Coast, around 14 thousand euros. In these five ULS alone, the overall value exceeds 1.2 million euros.
However, as hospital managers point out, the debt can, after all, reach 15 million eurossince the vast majority of acts performed “are you don’t get paid.”
Raquel Chantre, from the management of the Portuguese Association of Hospital Administrators, says that, even if the ULS have hundreds of millions of euros in funding, this amount “is significant when we think that there are hundreds of thousands of euros in care provision that could be applied to access for other citizens. Any euro we spend on the SNS must be very well managed and its use must be effective”.
“All the euros that are coming out of our budget and that are not legitimately paid by those who owe it always have an impact”, he concludes.
The PSD now wants non-residents in Portugal to join the SNS, with the aim of combating “international networks” who wish to take advantage of the service.
This practice, known as ““, consists of “organized informal networks that make it easier for foreigners who just want to use it at no cost to themselves to come to our country”, as described André Trindadepresident of the Central Administration of the Health System (ACSS).
