Laura Ferreira (27 September 196525 February 2020) was a Portuguese physiotherapist. She was the second wife of

Pedro Passos Coelho Pedro Manuel Mamede Passos Coelho (; born 24 July 1964) is a Portuguese politician and university guest lecturer who was the 118th prime minister of Portugal, in office from 2011 to 2015. He was the leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) b ...

, former prime minister of Portugal.

Early life

Laura Maria Garcês Ferreira was born in what was then the Portuguese colony of

Portuguese Guinea Portuguese Guinea ( pt, Guiné), called the Overseas Province of Guinea from 1951 until 1972 and then State of Guinea from 1972 until 1974, was a West African colony of Portugal from 1588 until 10 September 1974, when it gained independence as Gu ...

(now the sovereign country of Guinea-Bissau) on 27 September 1965, the daughter of Tomás Ferreira, a civil servant who had a Portuguese father and a mother from

Portuguese Cape Verde Cape Verde was a colony of the Portuguese Empire from the initial settlement of the Cape Verde Islands in 1462 until the independence of Cape Verde in 1975. History 15th century The islands of Cape Verde was discovered in 1444 by Dom Prin ...

(now the sovereign country of Cape Verde), and Domitília Garcês, who had a Portuguese father and a mother from Portuguese Guinea. They lived in the town of

Canchungo Canchungo is a town located in the western Cacheu Region of Guinea-Bissau formerly known as Vila Teixeira Pinto after Major João Teixeira Pinto João Teixeira da Rocha Pinto (22 March 1876 – 25 November 1917) was a Portuguese military offic ...

. After the

Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution ( pt, Revolução dos Cravos), also known as the 25 April ( pt, 25 de Abril, links=no), was a military coup by left-leaning military officers that overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo regime on 25 April 1974 in Lisbo ...

of 25 April 1974, a military coup in Lisbon which overthrew Portugal's '' Estado Novo'' dictatorship and would grant independence to the Portuguese territories in Africa shortly after, her parents moved to Cape Verde, living in the city of

Mindelo Mindelo is a port cityCabo Verde, Statistical Yearbook ...

for a while, where Ferreira went to school. In 1978 the family moved to Portugal, living first in

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of . The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto Metropolitan Area, Porto, and Bra ...

and then in Cacém near the capital,

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

. As a college student, she first studied medicine at the

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, th ...

and then switched courses, being ultimately awarded a degree in physiotherapy which led her to follow a professional career as physiotherapist.

Career

In the early 2000s, she joined the Education Centre for Disabled Citizens in Mira-Sintra, and later acted as coordinator of the Rehabilitation Medicine Centre.

Personal life

In 2004 she married

, who became the prime minister of Portugal between 2011 and 2015 as leader of the liberal-conservative

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

(PSD). They had one daughter. Ferreira also had a daughter from a previous marriage. In 2015 Ferreira was diagnosed as having a bone tumour. She died in hospital on 25 February 2020.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferreira, Laura 1965 births 2020 deaths University of Lisbon alumni Portuguese physiotherapists