The number of users without an assigned family doctor rose by 4,7% between April and May this year, now exceeding 1,7 million, indicates the transparency portal of the National Health Service (SNS).
According to data consulted by the Lusa agency, in April this year 1.678.226 people did not have a family doctor, a number that increased to 1.757.747 users within a month, which represents an increase of almost 80 thousand users.
The number of users without a family doctor reached the lowest value in recent years in September 2019, with 641.228 people, but since then it has been rising with some more significant reductions in 2020, in the first year of the covid-19 pandemic.
Between the low of September 2019 and the high of May 2023, the number of users without an assigned specialist increased by 174%.
On the other hand, between April and May, the number of subscribers to primary health care on the SNS increased slightly – just 0,1% -, rising from 10.593.853 in April to 10.608.721 in the following month, i.e. one addition of 14.868 users.
The transparency portal also indicates that, by choice of the user himself, just over 30 thousand people did not have a family doctor, a number that has been stabilized since November 2022.
Recently, the executive board of the SNS announced that around 500 users will now have a family doctor following the placement of 314 of these specialists in general and family medicine in the last recruitment competition.
According to executive director Fernando Araújo, in the case of Lisbon and the Tagus Valley, the region of the country with the greatest shortage of clinicians in this specialty, around 200 people will have a family doctor in the coming months.
Of the total of 314 doctors, 113 were placed in Lisbon and the Tagus Valley, corresponding to 29% of placements, followed by the North with 109, the Center with 73, the Algarve with 14 and the Alentejo with five.
On May 2, 978 vacancies for general and family medicine were put out to tender, corresponding to all the missing posts in the country, to retain recent graduates and to attract specialists who were not on the SNS, but the Ministry of Health admitted, at the time, hiring 200 to 250 family doctors was realistic.
In view of the placement of 314 doctors, 36 of whom were from the SNS, Fernando Araújo stressed that these results «clearly exceed expectations» and that this was the «fastest competition that has ever been opened», about three months earlier than in recent years, that is, one week after the approval of the marks of the specialty exams.
In practice, filling these 314 jobs corresponds to about a third of the needs of the SNS in the area of general and family medicine.
According to him, the increase in users without a family doctor is due to several reasons, such as the high number of retirements in 2022 and 2023 and which will continue next year, but also to the fact that «many professionals have given up on the SNS».
According to the executive board, these 314 placements represent the second highest number of family doctors ever hired for the SNS by tender, after 2020, the year of the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, when 319 specialists entered.
Doctors' unions have demanded that the Government take measures to retain and attract more specialists to the SNS, such as improving working conditions in primary health care and revising salary scales.
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