More Doctors is approved in the Senate – 06/20/2023 – Health

The Senate approved, this Tuesday (20), the provisional measure of Mais Médicos, without changes in relation to the project sent by the Chamber of Deputies. With that, the text goes to the sanction of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

The approved text aims to take more health professionals to inland areas and to more distant regions.

The federal government announced the new version of Mais Médicos in March with the opening of 15,000 new vacancies. By the end of 2023, 28 thousand professionals will be established throughout the country, mainly in areas of extreme poverty.

Another novelty endorsed by the Senate this Tuesday, is the possibility of paying a bonus to the doctor who has financed the graduation by Fies (Student Financing Fund) and wants to do residency in family medicine.

As it is a specialty considered strategic for the SUS (Sistema Único de Saúde), Congress proposed that the doctor earn an incentive equivalent to the outstanding balance when completing, uninterruptedly, 24 months of training to obtain the title.

During the processing of the provisional measure in the mixed committee, the rapporteur Zenaide Maia (PSD-RN) had inserted a device that determined that doctors would be exempt from the clinical test of Revalida if they were approved in the periodic evaluations of the program.

This passage, however, was deleted from the version approved by the Chamber. Now in the passage through the Senate, Zenaide was the rapporteur again, but he decided to abide by the decision — the topic was even debated by senators in plenary, but the wording given by the deputies was maintained.

On the 19th, the Ministry of Health announced that Mais Médicos will have an increase of 10,000 new vacancies. The opening will be directed to the whole country and is of the co-participation modality, a partnership that occurs between the portfolio and the city that claims the professionals.

The municipalities with greater fragility will have preference for the new vacancies. Those with more critical levels of vulnerability, for example, can even double the number of professionals in the family health teams through the program.