Government authorises land purchase for new Lisbon hospital

The Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro has authorised the purchase of five parcels of land covering 28,000m2 for €4.78 million on which to build Lisbon’s new Lisboa Oriental Hospital.

In an order published this Friday in the government circular Diário da República, Luís Montenegro recalled that “the Lisboa Oriental Hospital will be an important milestone for the history of public health in Portugal”, but admitted that the project had been dragging on for “several decades”, and that it was “now important to get it built”.

In December 2007, Lisbon City Council decided to sell parcels of land totalling 100,561m2 on the site where the new hospital will be built. The transaction was only made public years later, in July 2010.

The building of the Lisboa Oriental hospital is considered the largest public works project of the last decade, but the process has been marked by delays, including a cancelled tender, with the subsequent award, in 2022, to construction company Mota Engil.

With an estimated investment of €380 million, the Lisboa Oriental Hospital, which will have 875 beds, will be built on plots if land totalling 180,000m2 in the Marvila area of East Lisbon. It will replace six Lisbon city-centre hospitals, one of which, San José is in buildings dating from the 18th century.