Competitions to hire newly graduated specialist doctors are delayed, warned the Independent Doctors’ Union (SIM), highlighting that the deadline to place more professionals in public health services ended on Friday.
“For four years now, by law of the Assembly of the Republic, the Government has been obliged to open competitions for new specialists within a month”, former SIM president Jorge Roque da Cunha told Lusa.
The final classification lists of the Medical Internship evaluation process were approved on November 12th and, on Friday, “the legal period of 30 days was completed (…) without the legally foreseen competitive procedures having been opened, in order to meet the needs that remain to be met”, highlights SIM in a statement published on its online page.
For Jorge Roque da Cunha, competitions should open “soon after” the grades are released, especially because these evaluation processes take place, every year, at the same time.
“For every day that passes in which specialists are unaware of which vacancies are open and where they can go, another day is given to private companies, who have been enticing doctors for months or years”, warned Roque da Cunha, criticizing the “chronic lack of planning” that ends up harming the National Health Service (SNS).
For SIM, there should be a “permanent availability of vacancies” instead of “rigid competitive models, with limited time windows”, which it considers not to respond to the real needs of the SNS or the expectations of doctors.
Through the permanent availability of vacancies and the full disclosure of identified needs, the union believes that there would be “more opportunities to hire and retain doctors”, reads the SIM page.