Over 2,400 Vacancies in More Doctors Program in Brazil

Around 2,448 places in 1,177 municipalities and 28 Special Indigenous Health Districts (DSEI) in Brazil are currently vacant in the More Doctors program, and the number of participants ready to attend is indifferent.

The Ministry of Health informed that those interested in participating in the selection for available positions have until Friday to register on the program site.

The balance reported by this Ministry indicates that 5,846 doctors, who joined the project, either presented in the designated cities or started activities.

These professionals will replace the Cuban doctors who ceased their participation in the initiative, created in 2013 during the deposed president Dilma Rousseff's government, due to questions and derogatory statements by the elected president Jair Bolsonaro.

Pueden participar en la nueva convocatoria solo los médicos que tienen registro en Brasil (CRM).

The Ministry of Health indicates it will actualize the system with available vacancies.

It states that doctors who decide not to go to their posts must inform the municipality, which will inform the Ministry of Health. Those who have given up are unable to choose another district.

If the vacancies are not filled in this second stage, on December 27 and 28, Brazilian doctors trained abroad will have access to the system to choose the vacancies. Then, on January 3 and 4, foreign professionals will have the same opportunity.

Media reports say that 34 percent of the total vacancies opened by the Ministry of Health for the program were in municipalities considered to be extremely poor.

In a hundred of them, most of them in indigenous areas, there were not even any interested persons. The portfolio does not reveal which localities are not covered by the program.

According to a statement by Cuba's Ministry of Health, issued in mid-November, Cuba's participation in More Doctors program was made through the Pan American Health Organization and was distinguished by occupying positions not filled by Brazilian or other foreign doctors.

In these five years of work, close to 20,000 Cuban collaborators treated 113,359,000 patients in more than 3,600 municipalities, covering a population of up to 60 million Brazilians when they constituted 80 percent of all the doctors participating in the program,' the document states.