Rousseff: ‘More Doctors’ program ensures at least one doctor in every poor area

Criado em 23/12/13 13h42 e atualizado em 06/02/14 10h30
Por Carolina Gonçalves Fonte:Agência Brasil

Brasília – President Dilma Rousseff gave an overview on the government’s More Doctors program during her weekly radio show on Monday (Dec. 23). She reported that, in six months, at least one medical professional from the program started working in underprivileged municipalities, like those in the Semiarid region, in the Northeast, and in most of the North, where indigenous populations abound.

The president recalled that in several of these places communities were forced to wait for days before a doctor would come. “To these unassisted regions alone, we’ve already brought 2.963 doctors, and they’re working in over a thousand municipalities. To the Semiarid region alone, we’ve brought 1.594 doctors. We’ll keep working ceaselessly until we meet our goal: to bring 13 thousand doctors by March and April next year to all the regions in the country that have requested doctors,” she said.

According to the data made known by the president, the More Doctors program is being implemented in over 2.1 thousand municipalities, with nearly 6.7 thousand doctors at work. Almost 23 million people are taking advantage of the program, especially in the suburban areas of medium and large city centers in the North and Northeast, and also in indigenous districts and quilombola settlements (communities of slave descendants), which are the government’s top-priority regions.

The government estimates that over 45 million people will have been benefited by the More Doctors program when the total number of doctors reaches 13 thousand.

Edited by Graça Adjuto / Nira Foster
Translated by Fabrício Ferreira