Inequity in access to primary health care - The other side of Family Health Units
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32385/rpmgf.v26i2.10734Keywords:
Inequality, Access, Primary CareAbstract
Income and social inequality are very high in Portugal. Variation in access to primary care services contributes to inequality and no effective policies have improved these results. Resource allocation has often aggravated inequality in access to health care, as did some of the NHS reforms in the UK in the nineties. There are over a million patients without a GP in Portugal, 40% located in the area of Administração Regional de Saúde de Lisboa e Vale do Tejo. Neither the new Primary Care Surgeries, nor the recruitment of foreign doctors, nor yet the new Medical Courses will help, in the short term, to solve this problem. There is an urgent need for better solutions. A few EU countries solved the problem of shortage of GPs by contracting more nurses and transferring to them some areas of prevention and surveillance of chronic illnesses. GPs have now bigger lists of patients but work burden has not increased substantially and quality of care has been kept.Downloads
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