The plan, which plans to provide coverage to 96 million Brazilians, was abandoned by former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is very critical of the hiring of Cuban doctors.
The Brazilian government relaunched this Monday ‘Mais Medicos’ (More Doctors), a program created in the management of the leftist Dilma Rousseff to alleviate the lack of health professionals in poor and isolated areas, and which was neglected by the former ultra-right president Jair Bolsonaro , very critical of the participation of Cuban doctors.
In a ceremony at the presidential Planalto Palace in Brasilia, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced additional resources for this program, which he said had been “extraordinarily successful” in the past because it was essential for favela residents to , from the remote Amazonian municipalities or the small and medium-sized cities in the interior of the South American giant could be treated with dignity by public health.
Officially, it will be renamed ‘More Doctors for Brazil’, it will cover 96 million of Brazilians (almost half of the population) and more than double the number of professionals, from 13,000 to 28,000. Currently, it has 18,000 places, but 5,000 are vacant, many professionals have no interest in their remote destinations.
O Mais Medicos is still stronger. With more incentives for doctors trained in the country. Health cannot be treated as an expense, because there is no investment greater than saving a life.
– Lula (@LulaOficial) March 20, 2023
The doctors who register will sign for 4 years, renewable for an equal period, and will receive a series of benefits with which the government intends to encourage their permanence for long periods, such as substantial improvements in their economic conditions after the first few years.
The program will cost the state coffers this year 712 million reais (about 135 million dollars).
Bolsonaro against Cuba
‘Mais Medicos’ was the subject of much criticism from the Brazilian right, especially from Bolsonaro and his allies, because thanks to a partnership with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) it included thousands of foreign doctors, many of them from Cuba, a country that has a powerful export sector of health professionals to other countries.
On several occasions, the former president, a declared enemy of the Latin American leftist governments, questioned the professionalism of the doctors on the Caribbean island during his tenure and stated that the program served to finance the communist government, which, according to him, kept a large part of it. of the expected salary for doctors.
Before assuming power in January 2019, but already as president-elect, Bolsonaro announced that he would impose conditions if the Cuban doctors wanted to continue in Brazil, which prompted the island’s government to announce the withdrawal of the program and the withdrawal of 11,000 health professionals who were working in Brazil at the time.
Some of them remained in Brazil and, according to the local press, some were readmitted by the government. He former president tried to create his version of the programbut it never materialized and the original launched by the Rousseff government in 2013 did not extinguish either.
“They sold a negative image”
“They tried to put an end to ‘Mais Medicos’, they sold a negative image in a pejorative way and they didn’t even apologize to the Cuban doctors who left this country,” Lula declared.
The president assured that the priority of this program will be the doctors trained in Brazil, but that if necessary foreigners will be hired.
“We want all the doctors who register to be duly trained Brazilians. If not, we will give opportunity to Brazilians trained abroad or to foreigners working in Brazil. If there still aren’t any, we will call foreign doctors to take on this task,” he said.
“What matters is not knowing the nationality of the doctor, but that of the patient, that he is a Brazilian in need of attention”he added.
Source: RT
