"The number of nurses that we have been told are needed to meet the current needs is around 850, 870 nurses," Ana Paula Martins told reporters in Porto de Mós (Leiria), on the sidelines of the inauguration of the remodelling works at the local health centre.

According to the Minister, "the needs, about two-thirds," are concentrated in the Lisbon and Tagus Valley Region.

"What I also wanted to say is that, again, it's not just through hiring, hiring is an important part, but it's also through extending working hours," she said.

Request for intervention

On 31 August, the Order of Nurses requested the urgent intervention of the Minister of Health in the process of authorising ULS to hire, because the country is wasting more than three thousand new professionals.

At issue are the 2026 organisational development plans, which define the human resources that the Local Health Units (ULS) and oncology hospitals can have at their disposal and which have not yet been approved this year, even though, according to the Order, there are already three thousand nurses available, as reported by the Público newspaper.

Ana Paula Martins stressed today that "these three thousand nurses," who "are now finishing nursing schools, have, in addition to the National Health Service (SNS), other areas of attraction as well."

"These three thousand nurses, for the need for nursing hours that we have, both in the National Health Service, as well as in the private and social sectors, are more than exhausted," she said.

Admitting that, at this stage of the year, she would like to "already have a different hiring capacity," the minister said she hopes that, in this second semester, it will be possible to "meet these needs and the nursing pool will have more capacity for hiring, which is also often a problem."

Asked about how many nurses the supervisory body is available to authorize hiring by the Local Health Units (ULS), Ana Paula Martins refused to give the number, which “will be disclosed in due course, but only for one reason,” because it depends on the adjustment to the overall reference framework of the National Health Service (SNS).

“But I would say that we will not be far [from around 850],” through “new nurses and nursing hours, which is also very important,” she emphasised.

The official said that “between 2024 and 2025” the number of these professionals working in the National Health Service (SNS) was increased “by more than 1,500 nurses,” to acknowledge that this year “the ULS have had difficulties in hiring” given the need to adjust the overall reference framework of the SNS, which has indicators mainly of an assistance and economic-financial nature.

This adjustment was due to the "dynamics of enrollments in the SNS," which requires an expansion of response capacity, he stated, adding that the overall reference framework for 2026, which must "be published now," includes hiring in the second semester.