The Central Administration of the Health System has published an advertisement in Brazil to attract Brazilian doctors to health centers in areas with the greatest shortage of family doctors in Portugal, offering € 2,863 / month and “function house”.
According to the Público newspaper, which quotes the announcement that is being released in Brazil, the Ministry of Health is “interested in recruiting doctors for primary health care”, offering them three-year contracts in health centers in the regions of Lisbon and Vale do Tejo, Alentejo and Algarve.
The workload will be 40 hours a week, with the possibility of concentrating the working week into four days, and doctors will be entitled to 22 working days of vacation, writes the newspaper.
In addition to a monthly salary of €2,863.12 gross (14 months per year), plus a €6 meal allowance per day and the “possibility of doing extra work”, candidates will have “a period of integration into the job with the support of a doctor from the service”.
According to the notice, the “function house” will be allocated by the municipality “in the geographical area bordering” the workplace.
However, writes Público, doctors must have “recognition of foreign qualifications” in Portugal and, “preferably, a minimum of five years’ experience”.
Visiting the Correio Braziliense blog, Público writes that the ACSS notice is being disseminated through Brazilian universities, to whom it was sent, and that the universities are “replicating” the announcement by “their alumni” and by “hospital staff linked to the institutions”.
The Ministry of Health told the newspaper that this is not a recruitment contest, but an expression of interest aimed at potential candidates who are able to come to work in Portugal.
The same source stressed that the intention is to hire non-specialist doctors in general and family medicine to ensure the care of citizens who do not have a family doctor assigned in Portugal – and who were more than 1.6 million in July.
Without giving details, in a written response, the ACSS tells Público that the announcement consists of a “summary” that “is still being worked on” and through which “the conditions that may be offered” are being tested.
As for the proposed remuneration, it explains that “it is based on the provision of medical services in primary health care, for a weekly schedule of 40 hours”.
The ACSS also points out that this “is a transitional hiring process, which aims to facilitate the regular access of the population to medical care, while the training process of the necessary specialists in General and Family Medicine and the generalization of Family Health Units (USF) model B”.
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. In addition, with the arrival of immigrants in Portugal, the number of people enrolled in the SNS has grown.
