The competition for access to the different medical specialties ends on Saturday and confirms the diagnosis of the lack of attractiveness of the National Health Service (SNS) for those who have just graduated in medicine. Many of the new doctors do not want to practice in State units and those who do try to do so as far away from the Emergency Room as possible.
The numbers already available, which will change little until the procedure is completed, prove the detachment from the SNS. A third of all vacancies are still free, more than half of the places for urgent and emergency medicine are without candidates and the areas that sold out almost immediately are the specialties that do not have an associated Emergency service and benefit from high private demand, such as dermatology, ophthalmology and otorhinolaryngology.
In detail, of the 2331 open vacancies, 765 are still to be filled. The empty places are concentrated in the basic areas of care provision: primary care, internal medicine, intensive care and the new specialty of urgency and emergency. On the eve of the closing of the competition, there are still 386 (56%) places for family doctors, 132 (65%) for hospital internists – who provide emergency services –, 37 (50%) for intensivists and 17 (55%) for specialists in acute cases. And, in support of the SNS, the picture is no better: 51 vacancies in clinical pathology (91%) and 42 vacancies in public health (70%) waiting for interested parties.
“It is a clear demonstration of the lack of political will of the Government of Luís Montenegro and the tutelage of Ana Paula Martins in making the working conditions of intern doctors attractive. The region of Lisbon and Vale do Tejo is the most affected, which continues to be unable to hire doctors because the Government offers vacancies on paper, but refuses to offer conditions on the ground”, criticizes the president of the National Federation of Doctors, Joana Bordalo e Sá. The oncologist guarantees that the diagnosis is worse than it seems.
12% of terminations with the SNS before access to the specialty
“The reality is even more serious: 283 of the 2375 candidates, 12%, have already terminated their employment with the SNS. This is not a statistical detail, it is a serious warning. These doctors gave up before even choosing a specialty, because the SNS offers them precariousness, overload and no career prospects. It is this Government that is pushing doctors out of the public service.” And he emphasizes: “Internal doctors represent 11 thousand professionals, a third of the NHS doctors, and support entire services on a daily basis, often alone in Emergency Rooms, exposed, unprotected and forced to assume responsibilities that do not correspond to their status.”
“Doctors do not reject the SNS. The SNS, at the hands of the Government, is rejecting its doctors. With low salaries, insufficient training, inhumane hours and lack of a career, there is no propaganda capable of convincing an exhausted generation to stay”, explains the union leader.