87-year-old man dies after nearly 12 hours waiting for a doctor at Portimão hospital

Wait in the emergency room

The 87-year-old man, a resident of Sagres, arrived at the emergency department of Portimão Hospital at 17:00 on Tuesday, 3 November, complaining of abdominal pain and vomiting. After triage, staff gave him a yellow wristband, the category used for urgent cases. He then sat in the waiting room for several hours without receiving any medical observation. SIC Notícias, which first reported the case, put the wait at close to 12 hours. The Manchester triage system recommends no more than 60 minutes before first medical observation for patients with a yellow wristband.

Collapse in the waiting room

Staff called him for his first medical observation at 04:40 on Wednesday, 4 November, roughly 12 hours after he had arrived. He did not answer the call. A nurse then went to the waiting room for patients with yellow priority and found him unconscious. According to the incident report cited by SIC Notícias, the medical team immediately started resuscitation manoeuvres and then moved on to advanced life support. He did not respond to either, and the team declared his death near 05:00.

Hospital and regulator response

Portimão Hospital expressed condolences to the family and opened an inquiry into the circumstances of the death. The hospital has not given any date for completing that review. On Thursday, 5 November, the Inspeção-Geral das Atividades em Saúde (IGAS) told SIC that it will open its own inquiry into the case. The case was first made public by SIC Notícias on 4 November, before IGAS announced its inquiry the following day.

What the sources do and do not establish

The Manchester standard sets a 60-minute ceiling for yellow-band patients, and the wait in this case approached 12 hours, far beyond that limit. Even so, the sources do not confirm a direct link between the delay in care and the man's death. Whether the delay contributed to the outcome will depend on the findings of the hospital review and the IGAS inquiry, and neither has a published completion date.