In a statement, the movement said that it will “take direct action on the streets, organising protest vigils (…) at the door of the municipal councils of the various cities in the Algarve”, “in the face of the attempt to devalue the regional political and health authorities on this subject”.

On 29 October, the Movement in Defense of Cancer Patients in the Algarve had asked the direction of the Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Algarve (CHUA) to cancel the public tender.

In view of the “absence of response” on an “unfortunate and incomprehensible decision”, the movement said that it “considers that the Board of Directors of CHUA should resign immediately”.

Speaking to Lusa, on October 2, the clinical director of CHUA, Horácio Guerreiro, said that the region does not have the necessary equipment to carry out all cancer diagnoses and treatments, which forces patients to leave the region, usually to Lisbon, sometimes to Coimbra, or to Huelva and Seville, in Spain.

Guerreiro explained that two companies applied for an international tender to provide these services, one Portuguese and the other Spanish, the latter “reputable in the clinical area and which presented guarantees of medical quality at a lower price than the other competitor”.

According to the clinical director of CHUA, patients who travel to Seville are provided with ambulance transport by the company and “they undergo treatments in a hospital environment, with excellent hospitalisation and intensive care, if needed”.

In Guerreiro's opinion, the distance of about 200 kilometres between Faro and Seville, “is not a problem for patients, as their condition is assessed in advance”.