Professionals from the Mais Médicos program are mobilizing against payment delays.

Brasil de Fato - Professionals working under the municipal call for applications for the Mais Médicos Program in São Paulo (SP) are mobilizing against delays in the payment of their stipends.

A group of doctors plans to stop seeing patients for scheduled appointments starting next week, only attending to urgent and emergency cases. Earlier this week, a protest letter was delivered in person to Mayor João Doria (PSDB), demanding payment. 

This is the third time this year that the São Paulo City Hall has failed to pay the professionals in the program on the scheduled date. The doctors had already reported delays in July and August.

The City Hall justifies the delays as a problem with the budget forecast left by the previous administration. In a statement, the Municipal Health Department (SMS) stated that the delays were "isolated" and that the last payments were made this week.

However, the doctors claim they have not yet received the stipend and are experiencing financial difficulties. This is according to family and community physician Eline Ethel Fonseca Lima, trained in Cuba, who works at the Vila Santa Catarina Basic Health Unit in the southern zone of São Paulo. "I live with my retired mother. I'm the one who covers the expenses. But I can't pay the bills, I'm behind on all my bills, there's no way around it," she stated.

According to Dr. Lucas Vinicius Lima, a member of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) in the interior of São Paulo and contracted by the Mais Médicos Program, the delay in payments is affecting his psychological health.

"Salaries started to be delayed by an average of 10 to 15 days every month. So, today, it will be 12 days of delayed salaries again, and there's no concrete forecast for the beginning of November, after the holiday. For me, the worst part is the issue of my own mental health because going to work with salary insecurity is bad; you end up harming the population. You end up going to work discouraged," he stated.

The São Paulo Doctors' Union (Simesp) is also organizing in defense of the professionals, after being contacted by 62 of the 70 doctors hired through the municipal Mais Médicos program, who reported the problem. According to Erivalder Guimarães, director of the union, the doctors do not accept the City Hall's justification.

"First of all, the delay, in my opinion, is their incompetence, because this budget allocation has existed since last year. On Tuesday we will hold a meeting to discuss what to do, whether or not they accept this proposal to wait until the 5th. Ideally, it should be paid immediately because they are starting to have difficulties," he denounced.

In the last year, the Mais Médicos Program has also suffered budget cuts at the national level, losing more than 2 professionals and reducing the number of municipalities served from 4.058 to 3.800, according to the National Registry of Health Establishments (CNES).