More than seven million Portuguese visited their family doctor at their local health centre (Centro de Saúde) at least once last year.
This is the highest patient number registered since the National Health Service (SNS) began being monitored, representing 312,000 more patients (+4.6%) than in the previous year. With the economic crisis, pressure on the SNS increases. Despite rising patient numbers, doctor consultations are actually down by 4.7% on 2011, revealed the Central Administration for the Health Service.
