In a statement, FNAM indicates that 765 positions remain unfilled, with the Lisbon and Tagus Valley region being the most affected, continuing to be “unable to retain doctors” due to inadequate conditions on the ground.
According to FNAM data, the unfilled positions are concentrated in key areas for the functioning of the National Health Service (SNS) such as General and Family Medicine (386), Internal Medicine (132), Clinical Pathology (51), Public Health (42), Intensive Care Medicine (37) and Emergency and Urgent Medicine (17).
Vacancies in General and Family Medicine (GFM) represent more than half (51%) of the total positions available.
In General and Family Medicine, 56% of the positions remain vacant, in Internal Medicine 65%, in Clinical Pathology 91%, in Intensive Care Medicine 50%, and in Emergency and Urgent Medicine 55%.
FNAM also notes that 283 out of 2,375 candidates have already resigned from SNS, considering this decision by doctors a “serious warning.”
“These doctors resigned even before choosing a specialty because the SNS offers them precariousness, overload, and no career perspective,” it emphasizes.
There are 11,000 medical interns, constituting one-third of SNS doctors, who sustain entire services daily, “often alone in emergencies, exposed, unprotected, and forced to assume responsibilities that do not correspond to their status,” recalls the syndicate structure.
FNAM states that the situation has been worsening and recalls a study by the Medical Association, published in 2023, which concluded that 25% of interns were in burnout and 55% at risk.
In light of this scenario, FNAM considers it urgent to reintegrate the Medical Internship as the first category of the medical career, to value the medical intern as a worker and trainee with dignified conditions and quality training, and to create a training fund that ensures access to courses, congresses, and scientific production.
Updating mobility and accommodation support is another demand, as is the “strict compliance” with labor law by all institutions.
FNAM writes that it has already sent a letter to Health Minister Ana Paula Martins and the Central Administration of the Health System (ACSS) demanding an urgent review of the regime and regulation of the Medical Internship and concrete measures to “halt the ongoing destruction.”
