Government accused of putting the care of patients at risk. What happened this time?

The Independent Doctors’ Union (SIM) denounced that competitions to hire newly graduated specialist doctors are delayed. The National Federation of Doctors (FNAM) accuses the Ministry of Health of putting patient care at risk.

Competitions to hire newly graduated medical specialists are delayed. According to SIM, 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”, the former president of SIM, told Lusa, Jorge Roque da Cunha.

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 .

SNS is harmed

The FNAM accused the Ministry of Health of “serious planning failure” by delaying the specialist placement competition, risking losing them to the private sector or abroad.

“Around 250 recently trained specialist doctors finished their medical internship in October and continue, in December, without any placement in the National Health Service (SNS), due to the delay in opening the hiring competition, whose legal deadline ended two days ago”, states the FNAM in a statement sent to newsrooms.

“For every day that specialists are unaware of which vacancies are open and where they can go It’s another day given to the privatewho have been enticing doctors for months or years”, warned Roque da Cunha, also criticizing the “chronic lack of planning” that ends up harming the SNS.

For SIM, there should be a “permanent availability of vacancies” instead of “rigid competitive models, with limited time windows”, which he considers to not 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.

“The country risks wasting highly qualified doctors, trained over more than a decade with public investment, at a time when the SNS is facing one of the biggest human resources crises in its history”, adds the FNAM.

Patients are harmed

A FNAM understand that This situation has “direct consequences patient safety and access to healthcare.”

The FNAM recalls that, among these professionals, there are “critical specialties for the NHS”, namely more than 50 General and Family Medicine doctors, more than 30 Internal Medicine doctors, 16 Obstetrics doctors, 12 Psychiatry doctors and 11 Pediatrics doctors.

The federation emphasizes that these professionals could alleviate closed emergency services cases and reduce emergency waiting times, which in some hospitals can exceed 5 pm.

Prepare from FNAM this delay in the competition “has no technical justification or administrative”, being “a serious management failure and political responsibility, attributable to the Ministry of Health, under the supervision of Ana Paula Martins“.

“Each day of delay represents doctors that the NHS loses and healthcare that is no longer provided to the population. The FNAM demands that the Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, immediately assume political responsibility for this situation and comply with the lawproceeding with the urgent opening of the competition to hire specialist doctors”, he accused.