More than 3300 nurses have left Portugal since 2020
More than 3,300 nurses have left Portugal since the start of the pandemic in 2020, with Switzerland being the main destination country to work, according to data from the Ordem dos Enfermeiros, which point to an increase in emigration in 2022.
The Ordem dos Enfermeiros (OE) has received, since the beginning of 2020, 3364 requests for declarations for the purposes of emigration, with the most recent data indicating that the requests expected to rise in 2022, totaling 1,221, 308 more than in 2021 ( 913).
Speaking to the Lusa agency, the president of the OE, Ana Rita Cavaco, emphasized that the more than 3,300 professionals who won the country between 2020 and the final of 2022 correspond to the number of nurses trained externally by Portuguese schools.
Doing an overview since 2015, Ana Rita Cavaco said that around 13,000 nurses enrolled in the Order, but more than 15,000 emigrated during this period.
“This proves to everyone that not only recent graduates emigrate, people with a lot of experience also emigrate, specialist nurses”, stressed the chairman.
Switzerland continues to be the country that receives the most Portuguese nurses, followed by Spain and the United Kingdom, which despite ‘Brexit’ (the United Kingdom’s exit process from the European Union) is still one of the preferred destinations for professionals, says the OE .
“Thus, European countries, which have been carrying out more aggressive recruitment campaigns, continue to be the main destinations for Portuguese nurses, but the United Arab Emirates also receive, from year to year, more and more professionals”, says the OE in communicated.
The Order emphasizes that these data demonstrate “the continuation of the trend of emigration of nurses, despite the chronic shortage of nurses in Portugal”, to the point of wanting to hire these professionals “and there is no market”.
Ana Rita Cavaco explained to Lusa that Portugal trains the nurses it needs for the entire health system – the National Health Service, the private sector and the social sector -, but then there is no hiring, although they are all needed.
Not being hired, he maintained, “they end up accepting proposals from other countries, not just Europe, where they will earn more, where they have a perspective of enhancing their career, where they pay for their training and their specialty”, which does not happen. in Portugal.
The chairman noted that there are services or beds locked due to lack of nurses, but institutions are not authorized to hire all the nurses they need.
On the other hand, there is the issue of fixed-term contracts, in which “there is no stability, no career, no appreciation”.
“And it is curious that even now, in these last few days, a petition for the equality of nurses in public service contracts and nurses in individual work contracts went to the Assembly of the Republic and was refused”, he lamented.
For Ana Rita Cavaco, doing this “is the same thing as buying a plane ticket from the nurses”.
“That’s what the Government has been doing successively, offering plane tickets to nurses to leave”, he concluded.