Syndicates have already queried competences of Latin American counterparts
Recruitment of Latin American doctors into the Portuguese national health system is already underway – despite the reservations of syndicates and professional bodies.
According to Público, in an exclusive now picked up by other media, Brazilian doctors are being offered a gross salary of €2,863 plus accommodation on contracts of three years to come and work in regions where Portuguese doctors are in short supply, namely Lisbon/ vale do Tejo, the Alentejo and Algarve.
On top of the considerable incentive of paid accommodation comes a daily meals allowance.
Announcements are already circulating in Brazil, outlining a 40-hour working week, with the possibility of ‘concentrating’ this into shifts across four days.
Doctors are assured 22 working days of holidays, the paper adds.
The announcements are going out under the aegis of ACSS (the central administration of Portugal’s State health system) – and according to Público, the gross salary refers to 14 months annual pay, while there is the “possibility of realising supplementary work” (overtime).
Accommodation, described in the advertisements as ‘a function house’, will be “attributed by the local municipality in the “neighbouring geographical area of the workplace” (meaning, close at hand to wherever the doctors are working).
On the basis that criticism of this plan has come from professional bodies who suggest Latin American doctors do not have compatible training with Portuguese counterparts, the ACSS publicity insists on “recognition of foreign qualifications” in Portugal, and stipulates a preference for “a minimum of five years’ experience”.
That said, Público says the information is being published in Brazilian universities, which in turn are sending it out to former pupils and “staff in hospitals linked to these institutions”.
To the paper, the health ministry stresses this is not a recruitment campaign but a “manifestation of interest targeting potential candidates that comply with conditions to come and work in Portugal”.
The same source adds that the plan is to hire ‘non-specialist doctors in general and family medicine to assure the care of citizens who do not have a family doctor assigned in Portugal and who, in July, numbered 1.6 million.
As Público concludes: “The problem of the lack of family doctors has worsened in recent years because of the high number of retirements of general practitioners and because some new specialists prefer not to fill vacancies in the most deprived regions (Lisbon/ Vale do Tejo/ Alentejo and Algarve). In addition, with the arrival of immigrants in Portugal, the number of people enrolled in the SNS has grown”.
Doctors syndicates have a different perspective on the scenario, locked as they are in a bitter wrangle with the government over pay and conditions.
This far, after negotiations that have been underway since almost as long as the war in Ukraine, the government’s 1.6% pay deal has been roundly rejected.
Strikes have been called, with new strike actions due later this month by medical interns.
