According to data from the Central Administration of the Health System (ACSS), to which Lusa had access, more than 350 vacancies for recently specialized doctors in the areas of general and family medicine, public health and hospitals remained unfilled in the first recruitment drive this year, which provided 1,264 jobs.

SIM states that despite its "countless alerts", the "Government persists in not taking any measures that make the NHS attractive compared to the private sector and other countries where Portuguese doctors are well received".

For SIM, the deterioration of working conditions largely justifies the low attractiveness of the NHS vis-à-vis the private sector.

Another "relevant factor" is the low salaries of the National Health Service vis-à-vis the private sector, as warned by the European Commission and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The union warns on its website that "any administrative measure that obliges doctors to remain in the NHS will only aggravate the problem, since the underlying problems of low investment in health, poor working conditions and worse pay conditions are not resolved".

ACSS data indicate that a total of 909 vacancies were filled in the recruitment drive, of which 305 were for general family medicine (out of 398 vacancies) and 604 for specialties such as internal medicine (111), general surgery (54), psychiatry (49), paediatrics (37), anaesthesiology (36), orthopaedics (30), cardiology (23), pneumology (21), gynaecology/obstetrics (14), ophthalmology (14), medical oncology (14) and radiology (14), among others.

According to the data, 77% of vacancies identified for all specialties were filled.

Last year, 66% of identified vacancies (1,674) were filled (1,100), the previous year 930 jobs had been identified and 65% (607) were filled, and in 2016 1,531 jobs had been identified and 945 (62%) were filled.

The recruitment drive this year authorized 1,264 jobs, of which 398 are for family doctors.

There were 853 vacancies for hospital jobs, with specialties such as internal medicine (159 vacancies), anesthesiology (59), pediatrics (51), psychiatry (56), cardiology (35), general surgery (63) or orthopedics (37).