The Secretary of State for Health expects the recently opened competitions to fill 158 vacancies of specialist doctors in hospitals in Faro and Portimão are successful.
«In the opening of vacancies nationwide, we have established a differentiating criterion so that, with no vacancies in large urban centers – Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra –, conditions are created for doctors to choose to work in more peripheral areas», explained Fernando Leal da Costa, in statements to Sul Informação, at the end of the inauguration of the new Health Center in Portimão, which took place this Monday.
The Secretary of State even considers that the Algarve "is not a peripheral zone", but rather "a very dynamic region in economic and population terms".
Therefore, he defended, the Algarve hospitals are "a good place for a health professional to make a career". «The Algarve is clearly a good place to work in Portugal», insisted Leal da Costa.
The official underlined that the fact that there is currently a Faculty of Medicine in the Algarve region “will also help to retain professionals”.
Despite the government's optimism, the truth is that the Algarve lacks doctors, especially in terms of specialties. Thus, in addition to the 158 doctors that should be recruited for the hospitals - 115 for Faro e 43 to Portimão -, there is also a lack of professionals in the Health Centers.
Rosa Gonçalves, director of the Barlavento Health Centers Group, revealed to the Sul Informação that, in this area alone – which covers Portimão, Lagoa, Silves, Lagos, Aljezur, Monchique and Vila do Bispo -, there are "about 40 doctors".
This was, in fact, one of the topics addressed by this responsible during the guided tour she made to Secretary of State Leal da Costa and the rest of the delegation, showing them the intricacies and services of the new Health Center in Portimão.
“This office is only waiting for a doctor to drop in here,” commented Rosa Gonçalves in conversation with the government official, while showing him an area with medical offices.
New Health Center cost 6,7 million
O new building of the Health Center of Portimão, located next to the former Santa Casa de Misericórdia Hospital in Portimão, cost 6,7 million euros.
According to the Regional Health Administration of the Algarve, it has highly qualified facilities for the provision of health care, ensuring primary health care for around 59.000 users of the municipality, where around 95.000 outpatient consultations and more than 4.000 are carried out annually. hospital specialty consultations.
The new structure, located in a geographical area with a considerable number of floating population, «comes to strengthen the provision of health care in the Algarve Region, increasing the offer of services to the population and guaranteeing citizens' access to more efficient and better quality services. , obtaining gains in health and gains in user satisfaction», adds the ARS.
The new building houses the new functional health units of the Barlavento Health Centers Group (ACES), integrating primary health care, decentralized hospital care, community care, the public and environmental health unit, care services.
The new Health Center in Portimão opened its doors on Friday, May 25th, but it was not until the middle of the following week that it started to fully function.
The construction of the building suffered some setbacks: it started in December 2007, but the work was stopped for about a year due to the insolvency of the contractor.
In 2010, ARS Algarve took administrative possession of the work, having opened a new public tender for its completion, which only took place this year.
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