"The commitment of the State and the Government is, whenever financial conditions allow, to hold new public competitions. We are now admitting an additional quota of around 5000 professionals, but it is guaranteed that, by the end of the year, we will admit more. But the objective is, by 2027, to admit 8000 new professionals annually, including doctors", stated Sílvia Lutucuta.
The government official spoke to Lusa on the sidelines of her participation in the Euro-Africa Forum, an initiative of the Portuguese Diaspora Council association, which took place on Monday and Tuesday in Carcavelos, on the outskirts of Lisbon.
Sílvia Lutucuta added that her ministry is working "on an ambitious plan for the specialization of health professionals from all careers".
"Our goal is, by 2027, to specialize around 38,000 health professionals," she said.
With the new admissions, especially of doctors, Angola tends to get closer to the ratio recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) of ten doctors per 10 thousand inhabitants.
The country currently has a ratio of just 2.48 doctors per 10 thousand inhabitants, according to Angola's latest health yearbook, for 2021.
The minister "told the ball" about how much the country has already done in the Health sector and, about the perception conveyed to the Lusa agency in Luanda by patients and families, and also by the National Union of Angolan Doctors (Sinmea), regarding the lack of medicines, laboratory reagents and human resources, Sílvia Lutucuta contrasted the gains achieved.
"We have to say and get to reality. Much has been done and the sector has made many gains. We have gains in infrastructure, in the organization of the health system itself, in human resources. We also have gains in improving care medical medicine, from low to high complexity, and this is seen in health indicators, such as the reduction in maternal mortality, infant mortality. Although we continue to have many cases of malaria, we have reduced mortality and I just want to say that ours. services, despite the challenges, are being improved", she considered.
The government official also warned about the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"It is important to highlight that no country in the world at this time is not suffering from the consequences of Covid and this post-pandemic phase (...) brings with it serious economic problems, some more serious than others, and we continue to feel this impact of Covid on countries' economies and of course Angola is no exception", she stressed.
Asked whether Angola intends to hire foreign doctors to strengthen its national health system, the minister preferred to talk about an "ambitious process of training staff".
"For this process we will work with various nationalities. And even in this Europe-Africa cooperation we will have benefits. We already have a historical relationship with Portugal, we will reinforce it. We are also working with Brazil and professionals from here and other countries. We have partners strategic areas, such as Portugal and others", she concluded.
