Ipea's president defends foreign doctors.

Carolina Sarres
Reporter from Agência Brasil

Brasilia - The president of the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea) and current chief minister of the Secretariat of Strategic Affairs (SAE) of the Presidency of the Republic, Marcelo Neri, said today (3) that he is in favor of foreign doctors coming to Brazil due to the shortage of professionals in the country. Ipea released a study this Wednesday informing that medicine is the career with the best job performance in Brazil, evaluated based on four criteria: salaries, working hours, social security coverage and ease of finding employment.

According to the study, the average salary for doctors is the highest in the job market (R$ 8,4). Another factor, according to the institute, that makes the course attractive to students is the ease of finding employment. Ipea technicians reported that data collected based on the General Registry of Employed and Unemployed Workers (Caged), from the Ministry of Labor, between 2009 and 2012, shows that medicine is the career with the easiest job prospects; at least 97% of graduates would find work, according to the study.

"Of the careers analyzed, medicine is the one with the greatest shortage of labor. When this data is analyzed geographically, it becomes clear that, in some places, the presence of doctors is one-fifth compared to other places," explained Neri, even though medicine was not the focus of the study released today, which assessed the situation of various professions. Regarding the situation of doctors, the minister and president of Ipea stressed that the data is not new and had already been demonstrated by the last National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) in 2010.

Data from the Ministry of Health shows that in Brazil there are 1,8 doctors for every thousand inhabitants. In Argentina, the ratio is 3,2 doctors per thousand inhabitants, and in countries like Spain and Portugal, this ratio is four doctors.

The government has justified bringing in doctors from abroad by arguing that there is a shortage of professionals in the health sector. The Federal Council of Medicine (CFM), however, says that there are enough doctors to meet Brazilian demand and is calling for a federal career plan to attract professionals to underserved areas of Brazil.

According to Marcelo Neri, the data showing that medicine is the career with the most employment advantages – high salaries, social security coverage, and easy employability, which compensate for the extensive working hours – demonstrates that the market is recognizing the importance of the profession through the increased value placed on the career, expressed by the better conditions offered. Situations where low salaries are observed, according to him, are examples of situations hidden by averages.

Edited by: Marcos Chagas