Brazil relaunches ‘More Doctors’ program to expand access to healthcare throughout the country

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced the relaunch of the More Doctors program to improve access to health care throughout the country, especially in regions of extreme poverty and health care shortages.

“In recent years, health care in Brazil has been severely attacked with lies and hatred for the poorest. That time is over. Today we recover the program that helped universalize health in Brazil, Mais Médicos [More Doctors], to serve those who need it most anywhere in the country,” the president wrote on Twitter.

Mais Médicos [More Doctors] was promoted in 2013 by the then government of Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) to bring health professionals to regions of the country suffering from a shortage of doctors and demanding access to health services.

According to the Ministry of Health, the program became responsible for 100% primary care in 1,039 municipalities.

Through this plan, more than 18,000 professionals were hired, including many Cubans who arrived to alleviate the shortage of doctors in some Brazilian regions, and benefited 63 million people.

In November 2018, Cuba announced its exit from the program in response to statements by then-elect President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), who promised new demands for the Caribbean country’s doctors and, at times, questioned their professionalism.

Lula’s government announced the program’s resumption with an investment of R$712 million (US$135.5 million) this year alone and the opening of 15,000 new vacancies, giving preference in the selection process to Brazilian doctors trained in the country.

Ninety-six million Brazilians will now have guaranteed primary health care, the gateway to the Unified Health System.

With information from Sputnik