News announced by the minister is already being criticized. It is an “attack”. Doctors are pushed to exhaustion.
The diploma has not yet been published, item by item details are not known, but the news announced by minister of health are already being targeted reviews and of concern.
Last Thursday, Ana Paula Martins, for example, said that doctors who have a contract with the National Health Service (SNS), who refuse to go in addition the 150 overtime hours mandatory, cannot exercise in another Local Health Unit (ULS).
“Of course, if they are not available to provide this continuity service in the emergency room of your hospital, in your ULS, it doesn’t make much sense to be able to do this service with different conditions in a ULS next door, sometimes even less than 20 or 30 kilometers away”, explained the Minister of Health.
Another new feature will be the increase in incentive – between 40% and 80% of the base salary – for doctors working in the SUS more overtime in emergencies, above the annual legal limit. This is to avoid hiring more workers.
It is above all the first measure that can lead to a “stampede to the private sector”according to working doctors cited in . Doctors complain about “draconian” medicines.
The Medical Association prefers a period of transition. President Carlos Cortes explains that this transition would serve to avoid disruptions in care in hospitals that are already low on human resources.
Xavier Barreto, president of the Portuguese Association of Hospital Administrators, highlighted that doctors workers they are “fundamental to maintain services [de urgências] in operation.”
The person in charge added that there are populations who could be seriously hampered in their access to health if there is no proposal to set the providers of services in the SNS.
Nuno Figueiredo e Sousa, president of the association of working doctors, warns: “They are create a problem at the mouth of the river and forgetting about the source. What is needed is to create conditions for more people to stay in the SUS”.
Joana Bordalo e Sá, president of the National Federation of Doctors (FNAM), accuses the Government of push doctors to exhaustion.
