São Miguel accounts for more than 75 percent of the Region’s pending medical disability evaluations, with some applicants waiting far beyond the legally established 60-day period. Despite increased medical board activity, delays continue to affect access to essential social, economic, and tax benefits.
For someone living with a disability, the passage of time is not simply a matter of dates on a calendar. It can mean another month without financial assistance, another postponed application for social protection, another period of uncertainty about rights that depend upon official recognition. In the Azores, where geographical isolation already complicates access to specialized healthcare and public services, delays in medical disability assessments have become an additional burden for hundreds of residents seeking formal certification of their circumstances.
According to figures the Regional Government provided in response to a Socialist Party parliamentary inquiry, 1,239 applications for medical disability assessment boards remain pending across the archipelago. Of these, 935 are on São Miguel, representing 75.5 percent of the regional total. The oldest outstanding application dates to February 7, 2025, meaning it has remained unresolved for about twenty months, despite regional legislation setting 60 days for these assessments. The Government acknowledges the delays but says its available information does not allow it to calculate average waiting times for each island or distinguish automatically between initial evaluations and reassessments.
The figures reveal striking differences across the nine islands. After São Miguel, Pico has 92 pending applications, Santa Maria 66, Terceira 59, São Jorge 45, Faial 17, Flores 16, and Graciosa nine. Corvo has no outstanding requests. These disparities reflect not only different population sizes but also the uneven capacity of island health services to organize medical assessment boards, particularly when physicians must divide their responsibilities between ordinary healthcare provision and disability certification.
At the center of the issue is the Atestado Médico de Incapacidade Multiuso (AMIM), Portugal’s multipurpose medical disability certificate. Unlike a medical certificate authorizing absence from work, the AMIM formally establishes a person’s degree of disability and can serve as essential documentation for access to specific social, economic, and tax benefits, provided the relevant legal requirements are met. Without an initial assessment, applicants may be unable to demonstrate their eligibility for assistance intended to address the consequences of disability. The distinction between first-time applications and reassessments is therefore especially important. Under certain conditions, previously issued certificates remain valid while reassessment is pending, whereas first-time applicants do not benefit from that protection.
The Socialist Party’s parliamentary initiative was prompted by reports of residents waiting more than a year for evaluation, including cases in the municipality of Lagoa. The party pointed to Regional Legislative Decree No. 7/2024/A, of October 7, which sets a 60-day deadline from the submission of an application to hold the medical assessment. The Government’s response confirms substantial delays but does not state how many applications have exceeded the legal timeframe, nor does it identify the island associated with the oldest outstanding request.
The situation persists despite an increase in assessments. Across the Azores, medical boards conducted 1,649 evaluations in 2024 and 2,261 in 2025, an increase of 612 assessments, or 37.1 percent. During the first eight months of 2026, through August 30, another 1,452 assessments were completed. Although these figures show increased activity, they do not show whether waiting lists are shrinking at the same pace, since the Government has not provided corresponding figures for new applications received during each period.
The contrast between São Miguel and Terceira is particularly revealing. In 2025, Terceira completed 922 assessments, compared with 859 on São Miguel, despite São Miguel’s substantially larger population and its present concentration of outstanding applications. During the first eight months of 2026, São Miguel completed 652 evaluations and Terceira 564. Elsewhere, activity varied considerably, with 90 assessments on Faial, 56 on Pico, 41 on São Jorge, 20 each on Flores and Graciosa, eight on Santa Maria and one on Corvo. These figures illustrate the organizational challenges of delivering a specialized administrative and medical service across a fragmented island territory.
The Regional Government attributes the delays to several factors, including the volume of applications, difficulty securing physicians to serve on medical boards, the need to balance assessments with regular healthcare responsibilities, and, in some cases, the requirement for additional clinical documentation or examinations. The geographical dispersion of the islands and differences in the resources available to individual health units further complicate the scheduling and completion of evaluations.
In response, the Government says it is reorganizing medical board operations, arranging extraordinary assessment sessions to address accumulated applications and reinforcing human resources. Other measures include the possible contracting of physicians on a service basis, closer monitoring of waiting lists by the Regional Directorate of Health, priority consideration for older applications, improved coordination between islands and additional professional training. According to the executive, these efforts have already reduced the overall waiting list by approximately 17 percent compared with January 2025 and allowed the processing of practically all applications submitted before that year.
Nevertheless, the remaining backlog raises questions about the system’s effectiveness and the information available to manage it. Without reliable figures that distinguish initial assessments from reassessments, or show the average waiting period on each island, it becomes harder to identify where intervention is most urgently needed. Increased activity is an important measure of administrative effort, but applicants’ experience ultimately depends on how quickly their individual cases are resolved.
The Government itself recognizes that first-time applicants require particular attention. Unlike those seeking reassessment of an existing certificate, they may have no official documentation establishing their disability. Consequently, they may be unable to access benefits for which they could otherwise qualify. For these residents, each additional delay can have direct implications for household finances, personal independence and social protection.
The controversy therefore extends beyond the administration of medical boards. It concerns the relationship between public institutions and citizens whose circumstances may already make navigating bureaucracy particularly demanding. A system intended to recognize disability and facilitate access to rights risks creating additional vulnerability when certification cannot be obtained within a reasonable period.
For an archipelago that has long defended the principle of equal access to essential services regardless of island of residence, the figures also raise a question of territorial fairness. The right to timely assessment should not depend disproportionately on the availability of medical personnel or administrative capacity in a particular island health unit.
The Regional Government points to measurable progress, and the increase in completed evaluations suggests that efforts to address the backlog are underway. Yet 1,239 outstanding applications remain a substantial challenge, especially when the oldest has been waiting for approximately twenty months.
Behind each application is a person whose needs cannot always be postponed until an administrative process is completed. The true measure of progress will therefore be found not simply in the number of medical boards convened, but in the reduction of waiting times and the timely recognition of rights.
For those seeking disability certification, time is not merely an administrative consideration. It is part of the dignity, security, and independence that public institutions are meant to protect.
Based on a story from Diário dos Açores, Paulo Viveiros, director. The photo is from the Hospital do ES in Ponta Delgada. Facebook page.