The chairman of the Medical Association (OM), Miguel Guimarães, said this Friday that Portugal has enough doctors and a National Health Service (SNS) that is not attractive.

“Young doctors do not want to stay in the NHS, they want to go to the private sector or abroad”, said the official in a debate on the theme “Is there a shortage of doctors in Portugal?”, Considering that Portugal has an excellent SNS, but it works as it did 42 years ago.

Then, he pointed out, there is also the problem of low wages, with the country having one of the lowest medical salaries in all of Europe.

Without debate, promoted by the National Academy of Medicine of Portugal, the outstanding president who in the last 20 years has tripled the number of medical students, which is reflected in the number of doctors registered at the OM.

The numbers indicate that there are 59,697 doctors registered at the OM, and that in 2008 there were 38,932.

Citing data from INE, Miguel Guimarães said that the ratio of doctors per thousand inhabitants also rose in 20 years, 74%, and that in no previous year there were 5.5 doctors per thousand inhabitants, 2.4 more than 20 years ago.

And according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in 36 countries studied, Portugal is the third with the most doctors per 100,000 inhabitants.

The total numbers by the Chairman say that of the nearly 60,000 registered doctors in the OM work in the NHS 30,000 (10,000 interns).

And even excluding doctors of retirement age (66.5 years) there are more than 17,000 doctors in the public health sector.

Last year, more than a third of the vacancies to hire newly specialized doctors in hospitals and public health for the NHS remained unfilled. And this year, in the last competition for general and family medicine, known for filling around 40% of the vacancies, the person in charge also said.

In the data through the bastonário it is informed, for example, that there are 1,752 specialists in anesthesiology registered at the OM but that 665 of them work outside the SNS. The same in radiology, with 869 specialists registered at the OM, 509 of them working outside the NHS. Or in pediatrics, with more than a third of specialists also for the NHS.

Without debate, besides Miguel Guimarães, Henrique Cyrne de Carvalho, president of the Council of Portuguese Medical Schools, and Adalberto Campos Fernandes, former minister of Health, also participated.