By Chesney Hearst, Senior Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – An additional 2,808 foreign doctors will arrive in Brazil this week, President Dilma Rousseff announced via her personal account on microblogging platform Twitter on Saturday, November 9th. The doctors will join the other health professionals who began entering the country in July in order to take part in the government’s Programa Mais Médicos (“More Doctors Program”).
“Currently, there are 3,663 physicians participating in the More Doctors Program. They benefit 12.8 million Brazilians,” said Rousseff. “These doctors are serving 1,098 municipalities and nineteen indigenous districts, most of them in the north and northeast.”
“By the end of next week, over 2,808 new doctors will come and integrate into the More Doctors Program. They will be received and evaluated and then taken to the cities that need it most,” she said.
The More Doctors Program began shortly after nationwide protests erupted in July of this year. The program is an initiative to provide underprivileged areas of the country with access to qualified physicians and appropriate health care, one of the grievances fueling the demonstrations.
A recent survey commissioned by the National Confederation of Transport (CNT) and conducted by the MDA research institute, suggests public approval for the controversial program has improved.
The findings, released last Thursday, show an over ten percent increase in positive responses to the question: “Do you support the More Doctors Program?”
However, the survey also found that 90.6 percent of respondents said they did not personally know anyone seen by a foreign doctor in the More Doctors Program. Of the respondents who did know someone seen by a More Doctors Program physician, 6.1 percent replied that the person received a good service, while 1.5 percent reported bad experiences.
Two thousand and five people in 135 municipalities were interviewed for the study which took place between October 31st and November 4th.
President Rousseff maintains that the program will continue to grow stronger, saying that “by the end of 2013, there will be 6,600 physicians for primary care and this will benefit 23 million Brazilians.”
Read more (in Portuguese).
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