Victim of severe burns waits three hours for hospital treatment

In another dreadful weekend for people trying to access State health care in Lisbon, a woman “with half her body burnt” waited three hours to be admitted to hospital, after Lisbon’s Santa Maria Hospital reportedly “refused” to take her in. The woman was transported from her home near Sintra, after being found at around 7pm with her injuries, to Santa Maria – according to a source for INEM, due to the fact that the hospital “is a reference in plastic surgery”. But there were no ‘vacancies’ for her, reports Correio da Manhã, thus she was only admitted to Lisbon’s Hospital de São José at 10pm. Elsewhere in the capital, the weekend was one of ‘chaos’ with A&E departments all warning of “imminent rupture” due to ‘the chronic lack’ of doctors available.