According to Diário de Notícias, the number has been increasing year after year: in 2022, 803 requests for certificates to emigrate were registered; in 2023, 944; and, in 2024, 972.

The Southern Section — the region of the country with the greatest shortage of human resources — is the one that has received the highest number of requests for departures, totalling 1,442 doctors in three years, followed by the Northern Section (1,149 requests). The Central Regional Section is the one that manages the fewest requests (128), not having even reached fifty in each of those years.

The president of the Portuguese Medical Association, Carlos Cortes, warns that “the impact of this emigration is brutal for the National Health Service (SNS)” and for patients.

“In the last placement competition for specialists, the Order launched a questionnaire to doctors who did not choose a specialty and we realised that many of them were going to emigrate”, he says, justifying this intention “with the lack of attractiveness of salaries in the SNS, in working conditions and, as far as intern doctors are concerned, even during their training”.