The Ministry of Health will open more than 900 vacancies for family doctors and there will be a 40% pay rise in some health centre groupings to attract professionals, the Health Minister announced
In an interview published this Friday, 14 April in the Público newspaper, Manuel Pizarro says that the most important structural measure to try to solve the problem of the lack of family doctors is to increase the training of these professionals, 507 of whom began their training in January.
In addition to this measure, he stresses the need to expand the Family Health Units [USF], especially those with performance-related pay - the USF Model B.
According to him, the tender should open in April and the 900 vacancies will cover "all places in the country where there is a lack of family doctors".
To attract family doctors to stay in the National Health Service (NHS), especially in places where they are most needed, Pizarro points out two additional novelties: needy vacancies with remuneration increased by about 40% only for Health Centre Groups (ACES) where there are more than 25% of users without a family doctor, and a new model that implies a commitment to mobility on the part of the doctor.
According to him, in this model, still limited in number - only 20 vacancies to see how it works - young doctors may apply for a vacancy in an ACES of the North, but with the commitment to be in mobility until January 1, 2026, in a more needy grouping in Lisbon and Vale do Tejo.
He recalled that "despite everything", the NHS manages to attract between 60 and 70% of the doctors it trains, and gave the example of the competition open this year for those who finished the specialty of General and Family Medicine in the second season of last year (108 had finished), in which 137 were recruited.
Questioned about the possibility of hospitals hiring professionals directly, he says that the Ministry's orientation is "to return to the SNS what existed for decades, which is hiring through institutional competitions".
However, he admits: "This will still not be possible in this first semester of the year 2023, because it requires a set of legal adaptations that we were not able to have ready at this time and because it also involves union negotiation".
Thus, he said that the decree-law that allows for the direct hiring by hospitals and ULS (Local Health Units) of "the overwhelming majority of recently graduated specialist doctors" will be used, recalling that "most specialties are linked to the emergency service". The national tender will only remain for those specialties that are not linked to these services.
About full dedication, he says that it will begin with doctors and professionals who are in FHUs, which have a remuneration model associated with performance, in integrated responsibility centres [in hospitals], in teams dedicated to emergency care, and will then be "progressively expanded".
As for obstetrics, he says that training has been extended, that in January 54 doctors entered the internship - "the highest number since 2011" - and that the Government is working with the Medical Association to create conditions to extend this internship.
Regarding the rotational operation of maternity hospitals and when asked if this will continue and for how long, Manuel Pizarro said that a plan will be made for the summer season, reproducing what has happened so far.
Comments