July 15, 2023
Lula re institutes the More Doctors Program
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva certified the law that allows the return to Brazil of the More Doctors program, created by the federal government through the provisional measure and approved by the National Congress.
With the act, the National Strategy for the Training of Health Specialists was instituted, which should increase the number of doctors working in the basic care of the Unified Health System (SUS), mainly in the most vulnerable regions.
By the end of the year, 15,000 physicians will be hired to work in the interior of the South American giant and in the outskirts of large cities.
This will double the number of professionals involved, reaching 28,000 and guaranteeing primary care for about 96 million Brazilians.
Speaking at the ceremony, Lula regretted that the program has been dismantled throughout the government of former president Jair Bolsonaro.
“When Alexandre Padilha (Minister of Health in Dilma Rousseff’s government (2011-2016) created the More Doctors, I did not imagine that anyone would be able to end it,” assured the former trade unionist to further guarantee, “Now, it is back to stay.”
Lula asked the whole society to defend the More Doctors and SUS, which do not belong to any government, but to the Brazilian people.
“The SUS is ours. We just have to perfect it, improve it and value our professionals, from the janitor to the doctor, so that health can fulfill its function of saving lives,” he preached.
And More Doctors is a way to improve the SUS, he emphasized, because with it, we take, to the farthest corners of this country and to the abandoned periphery, the right of the citizen to be cared for decently.
He pointed out that it is not enough to have a doctor. “It is necessary for him to be where the people are. More Doctors is the opportunity to take professionals to the patient, giving them the respect that human beings need to have in this country”.
At the same ceremony, the Minister of Health, Nísia Trindade, informed that, in the first announcement presented this year, 5,900 vacancies were offered, for which 34,000 doctors registered.
Of those first selected, 3 600 doctors are in activity throughout Brazil and 1300 in the process of hosting the initiative, instituted in 2013 in the Rousseff administration.
The doctors came from several countries, including Cuba, which re-validated on November 14, 2019, the solidarity and humanistic vocation demonstrated by its health professionals in dozens of countries, when it announced the departure of More Doctors, in the face of conditions and derogatory statements by the then elected governor Bolsonaro about Cuban doctors.
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English