The second surgical block of the new maternity ward at ULS Santa Maria was scheduled to reopen on Monday, 15 days after the first one began operations.
This second surgical block did not fully reopen on Monday. A source from the institution explained to Lusa news agency that what is planned is a “gradual reopening throughout the month,” with “opening to the outside for pregnant women in the Santa Maria area, subject to availability of vacancies.”
Aiming for the reopening of the second delivery block by mid-September, ULS Santa Maria reminded that, for good network management, it is “essential to call the SOS Pregnant line beforehand.”
On Monday, the second surgical block of the new maternity ward began to reopen in phases, following the opening of the first surgical block of the Luís Mendes da Graça Maternity Hospital on August 19.
With the new surgical blocks in operation, ULS Santa Maria will once again ensure cesarean sections and labor inductions that had to be performed in other National Health Service (SNS) institutions in the Lisbon region during the construction of the new maternity ward, which began about a year ago.
On August 5, the Gynecology Emergency department began operating in the new maternity ward, responding to pregnant women up to 22 weeks of gestation, a service that never stopped being provided at the institution during the year of construction.
According to ULS Santa Maria, in the first week of activity in the new facilities, the emergency service attended to about 260 patients, an average of 40 cases daily.
Last month, an Obstetric-Gynecological Ultrasound Unit began operating, with a total of six offices, one more compared to the previous unit.
In an interview with Lusa at the end of July, the president of ULS Santa Maria, Carlos Martins, confirmed the full operation of the two delivery blocks starting September 1.
Carlos Martins added that the new maternity ward should be prepared to perform 3,000 deliveries annually from 2025, planning to hire 120 specialist professionals between this year and next.
The overall investment of six million euros allowed for the remodeling of the Obstetrics and Gynecology emergency department and the construction of 12 rooms, two operating theaters, and an observation room in the new maternity ward, totaling about 1,000 square meters of newly built area.
“From an objective point of view, we invested six million euros in construction, equipment, and furniture. We have programmed in our action plan, in terms of human capital, an investment of four million euros annually. And we cannot forget that we were stopped for a year, and there were no revenues – an average of 2.5 million euros per month – which is 30 million euros. So, 36 million euros plus four is 40 million euros in socioeconomic investments that the National Health Service and taxpayers made,” explained the institution’s president.
