Rodrigo Antunes / Lusa
Health Minister Manuel Pizarro
The next competition for specialist doctors will follow the institutional model, in which each institution hires the doctors it needs, announced the Minister of Health, stressing that this model proved to be “more capable of attracting and retaining professionals”.
“We are working on returning to a model that for decades was very productive for the SNS, which is the model of institutional tendersthat is, the recruitment of professionals must be carried out within the scope of the autonomy of hospitals and ULS [Unidades Locais de Saúde]opening tenders according to the size of their needs and (…) the availability of doctors, as they finish their training in the specialty”, said Manuel Pizarro in statements to journalists at the Ministry of Health.
The minister recalled that the model of institutional tenders “was in force for decades” in the National Health Service (SNS) and “proved to be much more capable of attracting and retaining professionals than the national competition model”.
Recognizing some merits in the national contest, the minister admitted a combination of the two models to allow mobility.
“I do not reject institutional competitions having a combination with the national competition that allows mobility”, he added.
Manuel Pizarro said that this competition model in which institutions hire the doctors they need will be resumed for doctors whose training ended at the end of 2022.
“The tender that opens in the second quarter of this year will be already opened by each of the 43 institutions of the SNS” with legal autonomy to do so, he said.
Asked about the difficulty of hospitals in the interior of the country in attracting doctors, Manuel Pizarro explained that the institutions will be able – at different times of the year – to open vacancies “in the dimension of their budgetary capacity and what is possible to hire, taking advantage of all young people doctors who end up in the specialty” and recognized the need to increase vacancies (which allows for an increase in remuneration for those who stay in these regions).
“There will be a more simplified system for access to needy vacancies”, said the official, remembering that there is always a budget limit.
He also admitted that, in the case of hospitals in areas with lower population density and which are not suitable for training specialists, there must be “a harmonious combination of two models”.
“I believe it will be possible to create — with the work we are doing at the Ministry of Health with the Ordem dos Médicos [que atribui a idoneidade formativa] — a shared training model that expand training capacity in hospitals in these areas with less population density, allowing doctors to do part of their specialty in these hospitals and another part in hospitals in the coastal zone”, he said.
Following the Minister of Health, such a model could allow, “at a younger age, future medical specialists to be attracted to hospitals in these geographical areas”.
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