Lula sends a message to centrão and says that Nísia is not exchangeable – 07/14/2023 – Politics

President Lula (PT) this Friday (14) praised the Minister of Health, Nísia Trindade, and sent a message to the centrão, who made moves behind the scenes to take charge of the folder.

“There are ministers who are not interchangeable. There are people and functions that are a personal choice of the President of the Republic. I have already said publicly: Nísia is not a minister of Brazil, she is my minister”, he said.

The statement was given at an event to sanction the Mais Médicos program law at the Planalto Palace. The minister was applauded by those present on more than one occasion.

The resumption of the program is the result of the provisional measure that was approved in June by the National Congress.

The expectation of the Ministry of Health is that Mais Médicos will have, by the end of 2023, 15,000 new doctors across the country, totaling 28,000 professionals. The government hopes that the initiative will restore access to healthcare for more than 96 million Brazilians.

Lula criticized the extinction of the program and said that he never “imagined that someone would be able to put an end to Mais Médicos”.

“It was such an important thing for society that I did not imagine that any president or minister could simply say that this program will no longer happen, without saying what he was going to put in its place”, he said.

He also reiterated that the government is working to expand people’s access to specialized doctors. The Chief Executive said that it is unacceptable that, in some cases, the person discovers a disease and has to wait for up to 9 months to have a consultation with a professional with expertise in that area.

This Friday (14th), President Lula also signed a decree establishing an Interministerial Working Group. The aim is to discuss and propose rules for booking vacancies for physicians with disabilities and belonging to ethnic-racial groups.

The GT, coordinated by the Ministry of Health, will have the participation of the Ministries of Racial Equality, Human Rights and Citizenship, Management and Innovation in Public Services and Planning.

Right at the beginning of this administration, in February, the Ministry of Health resumed public notices that were paralyzed by the previous administration, causing lack of assistance to regions of greater vulnerability, mainly in indigenous territories. Of the 804 new vacancies, 152 professionals were directed to the DSEIS (Special Indigenous Health Districts), 14 of them to the Yanomami territory.

In March, after the official resumption of the program, the first public notice was launched with 5,968 vacancies to replace vacancies that have not been filled in recent years — 45% of them are in more vulnerable regions. Of these, a thousand vacancies were allocated to the Legal Amazon region.

In an unprecedented model, the Ministry of Health launched a new notice with at least 10,000 vacancies in co-participation of municipalities. This form of hiring guarantees city halls lower costs, greater agility in replacing professionals and staying in these locations.

In this announcement, 2,683 municipalities requested 15,838 vacancies that will be analyzed according to the criteria already defined. Of these cities, 599 will be able to have Mais Médicos professionals for the first time.