The Ministry of Health today announced an incentive scheme to attract doctors to the Algarve, starting with an extra €900 a month.
Despite local concerns, the Algarve is included in the incentive scheme which has been set up to help the poorer interior areas of the country.
One enhancement is the allowance for doctors’ subsistence and travelling costs where €200 a day now can be claimed if working more than 60 kilometres from home. The former maximum for any public employee was €50 per day.
This incentive is intended for doctors already in the National Health Service who agree to work a few days a week in another hospital.
The Algarve’s health management team said the measures make the region "more attractive for doctors exercising their professional activity."
Still in the approval stage is another law that sets an amount payable to doctors who accept full time jobs in deprived areas.
The Government's proposal is for a sliding scale of enhanced monthly salary payments over five years, €900 a month in the first six months, €450 for the next six months, and €275 a month for the remaining four years.
The Ministry also is looking at school transfer help for doctor's children, the preferential treatment for spouses looking for work transfers, and an increase of two days holiday.
The third change is for the re-hiring of doctors who have forcibly been retired from the NHS, providing part-time job opportunities with an enhanced salary package.
These measures have to "create the necessary conditions for the establishment of more doctors in the Algarve and make this the most attractive region for physicians in which to exercise their professional activity,” according to the Algarve's Regional Health Administration.
"The new system of incentives, together with other complementary measures adopted by the Ministry of Health, in particular the hiring of retired doctors on three year contracts, the new mobility allowances, the update of subsistence allowances, will facilitate the recruitment of more professionals and thus alleviate the chronic shortage of doctors' in the Algarve.
