The sustainability of the National Health System (SNS) in Portugal faces complex challenges, resulting from the growing demand for healthcare, the scarcity of resources (human, material and financial) and the concomitant ethical issues involved in prioritising care and treatment. The ageing of the population and the increase in chronic diseases, largely influenced by modern lifestyles, have significantly increased the pressure on the NHS. In the sporting context, particularly in football, player injuries represent an additional burden on the demand for healthcare. Treating injuries, often the result of physical overload and inadequate training programmes, requires a significant allocation of healthcare resources, including physiotherapy, surgery and rehabilitation. In addition to these two phenomena promoting a growing demand for health resources, health tourism, a growing phenomenon in Portugal, adds another layer of complexity. There has been mass tourism of foreign patients coming to Portugal to use the SNS free of charge, jeopardising Portuguese citizens’ access to health services, which are already limited by a shortage of human, financial and material resources.

Faced with these challenges, the sustainability of the NHS requires not only better management of resources, but also an integrated approach that includes the promotion of healthy lifestyles, the prevention of sports injuries, and more effective regulation of health tourism to ensure a more efficient and equitable public healthcare system capable of meeting growing demand without compromising its core mission of serving everyone.

Research Group: Territories and Organisations for Sustainable Development (TOSD)