The Ministry of Health’s big push to attract doctors to the Algarve for the summer season has resulted in the temporary employment of just four recruits.
This number is even fewer that in 2016 when a flood of seven doctors headed south as part of a mobility programme being run by the Ministry.
The programme was devised to cater for the increase in the number of people in the Algarve between June and September. The region has 500,000 inhabitants off-season, swelling to more than 1.5 million in the summer peak months.
A notification in Diário da República this June called for more doctors, especially for anaesthesiology, orthopaedics, gynaecology and obstetrics, paediatrics, internal medicine, general surgery, nephrology and oncology.
Incoming doctors would receive the same salary they receive at the hospital where they currently work, with the addition of a per day allowance and transportation subsidies.
Joaquim Ramalho, the chairman of the Algarve Hospital Centre, said that the four doctors that did make the trip are from Lisbon, Viseu, Bragança and the Açores and are specialists in anaesthesia, orthopaedics, neurology and general medicine – he agreed this number was "insufficient."
The biggest problem, according to Ramalho, is poor planning of hospital workloads through the year with the difficulty of recruiting additional doctors coming in a close second.
The issues of unattractive working conditions and poor pay iare the biggest deterrents. Ramalho pointed out that it requires more attractive conditions than those on offer before a professional changes his life for three months.
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