Sílvia Lutucuta, who was responding at a press conference in Luanda to the concerns of the National Union of Doctors of Angola (Sinmea) that threatened to manifest itself in the coming days against the lack of new doctors in the health system and the improvement of conditions of work, focused on improving health care and stressed that the last public tender "excelled in transparency, equity and without facilitating for anyone".
The minister stressed that one of the assumptions of the public tender is the grade and that all candidates were subjected to an exam where not all had the same performance.
Of the 1240 vacancies for doctors, 200 were for specialist doctors and only 120 were filled.
“We are looking for specialists to come and fill the vacancies and, even so, 80 are left”, he noted.
Among the other 1040 vacancies, there were notes of 18 values, but also candidates for doctors with two and three values.
"We see no reason for doctors to speak up because those who were not positive will not even enter, they are not able to," said the head of the Health portfolio, adding that there are many medical errors, which should not continue.
“We cannot, in a country where we want to excel in providing good health services, put doctors to work with dubious training or provision. So the idea is to have health professionals that inspire confidence in the population, ”said Sílvia Lutucuta.
As for the 160 doctors with a positive note that were left to be placed, "an assessment is being made", said the minister, admitting that they may find placement outside Luanda.
The minister showed confidence that doctors who "are in their position to provide the best service" in the fight against covid-19 "are certainly not going to demonstrations that are even prohibited during the calamity".
The Health official stressed that in the current legislature “the biggest public tenders in the health sector ever were held”, with 9250 health professionals admitted to the civil service in the 2018 competition and 7000 more professionals in a new competition held in 2019, with a “considerable” number of places for doctors.
"The objective is to make regular competitions as long as the financial conditions allow," said Sílvia Lutucuta, noting, however, that the State "is unable to absorb all human resources" so that all professionals "have their salary up to date".
Sinmea last week threatened to go on strike in the coming days, if there is no response from the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, to a manifesto from the medical profession.
According to Sinmea, the country currently has only 8000 doctors active, for a need of at least 30,000 professionals.
