It is a cycle that feeds the belief that nothing ever changes, that the future is always postponed. And then there are days like this week, when three Portuguese companies win a European innovation challenge and remind us that the future is, in fact, already being built right here, by our own hands.

Three Portuguese startups were among the winners of the Hospital Innovation Challenge, an initiative that brought together European hospitals and small companies to solve real healthcare problems. Out of twenty-three applications, six solutions were chosen, and half of them came from Portugal. That is not a coincidence; it is a sign. Yet, this news barely made a ripple in a country still learning to value what it creates.

From Aveiro, Vitruvian Shield developed an artificial intelligence platform combined with wearable devices for remote patient monitoring and chronic disease management, answering a challenge from São João Hospital in Porto. From Lisbon, Luz Eclética designed an AI-based alert system capable of predicting muscle loss in critically ill patients, a tool that can transform how hospitals anticipate nutritional care. From Madeira, Opvance created a secure digital platform to integrate clinical data and machine-learning models into hospital systems, improving both safety and efficiency.

Three stories, three teams, three pieces of evidence that Portuguese innovation in healthcare is real, sophisticated, and deeply human. And still, we hesitate to believe it. We seem to value a solution from abroad more easily than one developed a few kilometers away. It is almost a national habit that Portuguese talent often needs to be validated internationally before being recognized at home.

While public debate keeps focusing on what does not work, many Portuguese professionals, researchers, and companies are quietly creating what could fix it. Portugal has remarkable tools and talent. From global players like Swordfish, which powers clinical research worldwide, to these startups designing practical solutions for European hospitals, the potential is right here. The problem is not the lack of innovation; it is our inability to trust and invest in what we already have.

We are quick to criticize but slow to celebrate. We focus on the noise of dysfunction and ignore the quiet progress that could redefine the future of healthcare. In a time when the system desperately needs hope and results, perhaps the first step is simple: to investigate ourselves and acknowledge our own capacity. Because sometimes, what a country needs most is not another headline of failure, but a little more faith in itself and its people.