In the first eight months of the year, the National Health Service (SNS) spent more than €200 million on overtime for doctors. Each doctor worked, on average, more than 135 extra hours – more than twice as much as a nurse – and earned nearly €6,500 for it.
According to preliminary data from the Central Administration of the Health System (ACSS) Renaissancethe amount paid to health workers for overtime until August It was 302 million euros. Doctors received more than two-thirds of this amount (205 million euros).
Doctors’ spending on overtime this year is close to the total for the years 2020 through 2022 and already exceeds the amount doctors received for overtime in 2019.
On average, according to the available numbers of professionals on the SNS Transparency Portal, Each doctor has already received approximately €6,500 in overtime in 2023. This amount is six times higher than the amount each nurse receives (1,130 euros on average).
In total, SNS spent €57 million on nurses and around €40 million on other health professionals.
In its explanation, the central administration of the health system indicates that “in cases of need, the authorities resort to additional work, with the aim of ensuring the regular functioning of emergency services.”
Doctors worked twice as much overtime as nurses
Interim ACSS numbers also indicate that health care professionals worked more than 11 million overtime hours through August, numbers that are lower than in the pandemic years and close to the last year before the pandemic, 2019.
That year, total overtime exceeded 13 million, with doctors working more than 5.6 million overtime hours. Until August of this year, Doctors worked more than 4.3 million hours of overtimeWhile nurses worked about 3.2 million overtime hours.
On average, according to available numbers of professionals on the SNS Transparency Portal, each doctor worked 137 overtime hours – more than double the overtime hours of nurses and close to the maximum of 150 hours set by law.
On Wednesday, the head of the Medical Association, Carlos Cortés, met with the Minister of Health, Manuel Pizarro, where he discussed the measures that will be discussed at the medical forum to be held next Thursday in Coimbra.
Among the measures under discussion are the opening of a process for a new medical profession and the option to reduce basic working hours from 40 to 35 hours, in addition to a plan to attract and retain doctors in the SNS and improve the training portfolio for doctors.
a Renaissance He conducted a survey of data available on the SNS transparency portal, which showed that more than 12 million additional working hours have already been accumulated this year, making it the third highest number since there was a record for this period of the year.
This number is double the number of additional hours recorded 10 years ago, in the same period, and higher than the total for the period from 2014 to 2018.
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