Rousseff renews commitment to send doctors into "every corner" of Brazil

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Tuesday renewed her commitment to provide adequate healthcare services to "every corner" of the country on the second anniversary of the launching of the program that opened the door to allowing foreign doctors to practice here.

Rousseff presided at a ceremony celebrating the "success" of the "More Doctors" program, via which today some 14,500 foreign health professionals, of whom almost 11,500 are Cubans - whom she highly praised - work in Brazil.

"You and the Cuban government gave evidence of solidarity, professionalism and humane attention," said the president, who then went on to discuss at length the other foreign physicians enrolled in the plan, who come from Argentina, Bolivia, Spain, Portugal, Uruguay, Venezuela and other nations.

Rousseff announced the More Doctors plan in mid-2013, after a two-week period during which the government was the target of massive protests, with millions of Brazilians taking to the streets to demand better public services.

The president - who is now facing historically low levels of public support, with her approval rating hovering between 7.7 percent and 10 percent, according to recent surveys - avoided mentioning the 2013 protests, but she did cite the criticism opposition sectors made of the hiring of foreign doctors.

According to Rousseff, "There was a basic lack of knowledge of the aim of the program," which was "to guarantee enough doctors to attend to the entire population" of the country, an objective that still has not been attained but which the government intends to fulfill by 2026.

Even so, she emphasized that, two years after the start of the program, physicians have been dispatched to the most remote parts of the country and into the poorest neighborhoods in the large cities, where adequate medical attention for the public is generally lacking.

Despite the fact that the goal of 2.7 doctors per 100,000 residents has not yet been attained, Rousseff emphasized that, thanks to the plan, today "the country's 5,570 municipalities have at least one doctor," whereas two years ago "there were none" in 700 communities.

Rousseff also emphasized the "growing" interest that the plan has aroused among Brazilian doctors, who filled all the 4,200 new positions for physicians that opened this year, bringing to 18,200 the number of professionals enrolled in the program.