The government intends to hire 300 Cuban doctors for the National Health Service (SNS), but both the Order and the unions are wary of the move.
“This means that the Minister of Health is refusing doctors trained in Portugal,” said Carlos Cortes, chairman of the Order of Physicians, lamenting the lack of “an initiative specifically to improve working conditions and attract doctors formed in Portugal.” .
Roque da Cunha, secretary general of the Union of Independent Doctors, recalls that Cuban doctors were hired a few years ago and the solution “didn’t work.”
“The contract is with the Cuban government and we will have a Portuguese government that will effectively support a dictatorship that uses its services to send doctors abroad,” he stressed. In the first two days of the doctors’ strike – with a 90 percent commitment across the country, according to FNAM – the President of the National Federation of Doctors, Joana Bordalo-e-Sa, felt that hiring Cuban doctors was “not enough” to make up for lost time. due to the lack of clinicians in the SNS.