Data from the Medical Association (OM) provided to the Lusa Agency show that in 2021, there will be 4,360 foreign doctors trained in Portugal, rising to 4,503 in 2022, 4,730 in 2023 and 4,770 this year.
In 2024, the most represented nationalities among these physicians were: Spanish (35.4%), Brazilian (26.9%), Italian (5.7%), Ukrainian (3.9%), German (3.5%), Cuban (3%), Angolan (2 %), Colombian (1.9%) and, 1.5% each, Romanian, French, Cape Verdean and Guinean.
Commenting on these data to Lusa, the president of the Commission of Doctors, Carlos Cortes, said that the OM does not care about the nationality of professionals, but rather about their skills and qualifications to practice the profession.
“The order of doctors is increasing in the number of doctors from other countries, which is obviously important”, but, he argued, conditions should be provided for Portuguese doctors trained abroad to return to the National Health Service.
He announced that this week the OM will send a proposal to the Assembly of the Republic, in which the return of these doctors to Portugal, in addition to the Regressar program, protects the “special conditions” of attraction.
Carlos Cortes also argued that there should be “a set of efforts” to attract doctors to the SNS, regardless of nationality.
He stressed that the OM was “very happy” to have foreign doctors in Portugal, but stressed that they should be “different doctors”, “with appropriate qualifications”, with a set of instructions to carry out this assessment.
The data indicates that in 2021, 122 doctors registered in the OM will have to apply to a Portuguese university for recognition of their academic degree, rising to 220 in 2022 and 306 in 2023. In the first 10 months of this year, there were 212.
“18 special exams were held in 2021 (one failed), 32 in 2022 (four failed), 35 in 2023 (four failed), nine so far in 2024 (two failed),” they say.
1,311 foreign nurses work in Portugal, the majority from Brazil (469), followed by 294 in Spain, according to data from the Order of Nurses.
There are also experts from the Portuguese-speaking African countries of Angola (60), Cape Verde (52), Guinea-Bissau (41), Sao Tome (40) and Mozambique (5).
The data also indicate that there are 55 experts from France, 39 from Ukraine, 30 from Moldova, 28 from Germany, 22 from Romania, 18 from England, 17 from Italy and 17 from Venezuela, 55 from other countries such as Russia (17 ), Peru (15), Netherlands (15), Poland ( 12), Belgium (8), Canada (7) and the United States (7).
Luis Filipe Barreira, president of the OE, told Lusa that the number of migrant nurses “has remained more or less stable in recent years”.
Asked about the importance of these professionals at a time when the SNS is struggling with a shortage of nurses, the president said that having a human resources policy to retain Portuguese nurses is “very important”.
“We train some of the best nurses in the world” who then emigrate in search of better working conditions, he lamented, citing official data and remembering the shortage of 14,000 nurses in the SNS.
For Luis Barrera, it was necessary to conduct a survey of these “urgent” needs and outline a hiring plan.
“The subject of the meetings of the Minister of Health, who is aware of this matter, and I hope that this survey will be carried out in 2025,” he declared, and also defended the need to “improve the conditions of nurses. In Portugal “so that the emigrants return.
Data from the Central Administration of Health System (ACSS) published in the document “Health Human Resources Plan 2030”, the number of foreign doctors in the SNS increased from 902 in 2017 to 967 in 2023 (+7.2%) and nurses from 515 to 684 (+32.8%).
ACSS highlights that “in some areas its contribution will be decisive”, meaning that there are greater difficulties in recruiting and retaining health professionals.
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