The government has announced plans to open competitions next week to recruit over fifty new specialists in General and Family Medicine, along with 1,070 positions for retired doctors.
“When I talk about family doctors, I am referring to about 525 vacancies. The rest (…) are hospital specialty positions,” stated the official at the 15th anniversary event of the Shared Services of the Ministry of Health (SPMS) in Lisbon.
Ana Paula Martins indicated that there is “a large number of doctors” available to join the SNS, with the competition announcement set to be published next week.
“When we talk about family doctors, this is what we mean: these 525 positions, plus 93 (…) for underserved areas, in fragile regions. (…) Additionally, there are retired doctors, not all working 40 or 35 hours. They have significant contracts that cover a large portion of these patients,” she explained.
“I am confident that we will, hopefully, make a significant leap in terms of more people having access to family doctors,” she added.
In the afternoon, the Ministry of Health issued a statement clarifying that “between April 2024 and February 2025, there were 173,970 new patients registered in primary health care (CSP), and during the same period, 175,530 more patients received a family doctor.”
This statement followed reports that over 35,000 more patients were without a family doctor compared to the previous year.
“In total, 8,951,224 patients had a family doctor in February 2025. In the same month, there were 1,565,255 patients without a family doctor, an increase of 35,900 compared to February 2024,” it noted.
The ministry further added that the number of CSP registrations increased, with February seeing 121,000 more registrations than the same month the previous year.
“We still have a long road ahead, the country has a long road, and the Ministry of Health has considerable work to ensure that all Portuguese citizens and those living among us who have chosen to develop their life plans here have access to a family health team,” noted Ana Paula Martins.
The minister highlighted the growing numbers on the National User Registry.
“We have new people every month, including immigrants who are legalized, and people who were previously unregistered and are now getting registered,” she emphasized.
[Updated at 23:40]
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