Today, Google pays tribute to Carolina Beatriz Ângelo , a doctor, Republican and the first woman to vote in Portugal, who named the public hospital in Loures that the Luz Saúde Group has managed in a public-private partnership for almost 10 years. Beatriz Ângelo was the first surgeon to operate at the Hospital de S. José, in Lisbon, and had her clinic in downtown Lisbon, where she treated many of the poorest in the city. At the same time, she actively integrated the republican movement with her husband, also a doctor, which led to the implantation of the Republic in Portugal, on October 5, 1910. In fact, the first flag of the Portuguese Republic, hoisted in Lisbon, was embroidered on her home, on the sly, by a group of republican women. Carolina would remain in the history of civil rights and Portuguese politics for another reason: she was the first woman to vote in Portugal. Already a widow, and shortly after the republican revolution, Carolina took advantage of a 'hole' in the electoral law that the new republican regime had approved to, as a 'head of the family', exercise a civic right that would only be recognized by Portuguese women for many decades later. The episode was widely reported and, despite the resistance of the Republicans themselves, the doctor managed to take it forward: the electoral law gave access to the vote to all 'heads of families', a condition that Carolina defended to register on the electoral roll: it was widow, and her work was the sole breadwinner of the family. With the help of a judge who was also a Republican, he saw his registration validated by the court and, on the day of the first elections after the establishment of the Republic in Portugal, he exercised his right to vote under the watchful eyes of the journalists of the time, who did not lose their opportunity to report in detail what happened. The truth is that she was the first and, for decades, the only Portuguese to vote in national elections for organs of political power. Soon after, Republicans, mostly in parliament, changed the electoral law precisely to prevent women, even though they are ‘heads of family’, from voting and participating in the many elections that followed. Carolina Beatriz Ângelo died months after this historic event, leaving an orphaned daughter. Her name, however, has endured, inspiring for decades the women's struggle for equality and freedom . And it was for all these reasons that it also became the name of the Loures public hospital. 10 years ago, before opening the new NHS hospital managed in public-private partnership by Luz Saúde, the Group decided to dedicate the Hospital to this republican doctor - making, in fact, Hospital Beatriz Ângelo the first of the NHS to have the name of a woman who was not a saint. The tribute that Google today pays you is also a tribute to all the women who work at the HBA and who daily do their best on behalf of the population they serve. Today Carolina Beatriz Ângelo would be proud of them all. Thanks! See the Google tribute
