"They chose to leave the SNS and go to work for the private or social sectors or go to work in another country, namely in the European Union", said Miguel Guimarães at the IV Conference of the National Health Convention "Recover Health, Now!".

According to data from the OM, about 59,000 professionals are enrolled in the Order, of which about 31,000 are in the National Health Service.

Miguel Guimarães gave the example of General and Family Medicine doctors, stating that there are about 1,600 newly licensed doctors who do not work in the National Health Service.

“In February 2019, 688,000 Portuguese did not have a family doctor, in June 2020, 851,000 Portuguese did not have a family doctor and in July 2021, 1,156,000 Portuguese did not have a family doctor. These data mean one of two things, either the Portuguese population is growing at a very high rate, which we all know is not true, or there are not enough family doctors in the National Health Service for every citizen”, he stressed.

For the president, this situation "it is absolutely regrettable" when there are about 1,600 newly licensed family doctors outside the SNS.

"If perhaps the State had a different hiring policy for professionals, it would value the career of professionals, in this case of doctors, if the State had a modern, up-to-date National Health Service, competitive with the social and private sector, competitive with the other countries of the European Union (…) it was easy to hire 1,600 family doctors, who are outside the NHS, who provided coverage to 1,141,000 Portuguese”, he defended.

For Miguel Guimarães, "this change must be made for the good of the SNS, to make it robust and more responsive".