#more doctors

Doctor Who: Rose Novelisation - Illustrated Version

Some of my favourite illustrations from the new book released today. (23rd Nov 2023)

Tokiko’s scientist grandpa was a plot device and Professor Gerald didn’t make sense as an “essentially kind but ambiguous character” driven to madness from the loss of his lover I mean granddaughter. His evil Soviet last name was lazily taken from Eggman and doesn’t fit his role.

The Ministry of Health registered 45,792 doctors for the Mais Médicos (“More Doctors”) Program, marking the highest number of applicants since its creation in 2013.

Of the total applicants, 93 percent are Brazilian (42,383 professionals), including 25,594 with medical registration in Brazil and 16,789 who graduated abroad. An additional 3,309 are foreign doctors qualified to practice in the country.

Women represent the majority of applicants, with 26,864 candidates, or approximately 58 percent.

The registration period closed on May 8.

Data from the Ministry of Health show that the Mais Médicos, or More Doctors program, re-established in 2023, currently serves 80 percent of Brazil’s 3,900 municipalities with populations between 700 and 52 thousand, with an estimated total of 26.9 million covered. The figure represents 40.9 percent of the people in these municipalities.

This Friday (Oct. 18), when Brazil celebrates Doctors’ Day, Health Minister Nísia Trindade said “it is a great achievement to see the growth of this essential program for the [national health care system] SUS reaching the whole country. Mais Médicos is a reality and is making a difference. When we took office, it had 13 thousand professionals. By the end of this administration, we’ll have reached the target of 28 thousand.”

The most socially vulnerable municipalities have also seen progress in the program’s coverage—60 percent of the doctors are in these regions. In the Amazon, nine highly vulnerable municipalities now have doctors.

The program has also seen an expansion in indigenous health care. In December 2022, it had 224 active professionals; in September this year, the number leapt to 570.

Brazil is set to hire more doctors to fight coronavirus and the drive will include Cuban doctors in Brazil as part of a medical program that was canceled in late 2018 amid a diplomatic spat between Havana and Jair Bolsonaro, the health ministry said on Monday.

Health ministry officials said they will initially look to hire Brazilian nationals, but after that, they would try to bring in Cuban doctors - collateral damage in a war-of-words between President Jair Bolsonaro, who was then the president-elect, and Havana. 

Almost 9,000 Cuban doctors, many working in poor, remote communities across continent-sized Brazil, headed home in November 2018, after Havana pulled them. Bolsonaro said they were working in “slave labor” because the Cuban government took 75% of their salaries.