According to data from the National Health Service's transparency portal consulted by Lusa, in August 2019, 644,077 people did not have a family doctor, a number that increased to a total of 1,675,663 in the last month, a difference of 1,031,586 users.

The same data also indicate that, after a reduction between December 2023 and February of this year, the number of users without a general and family medicine specialist increased again in the following months, an increase of around 146 thousand people until August.

According to the transparency portal, the total number of users with a family doctor at the end of last month is the lowest since 2016, just over 8.7 million people, when in August 2019 it was around 9.6 million SNS users.

As for the number of users without a family doctor by choice, it was only 13,868 in August of this year, when in the same month of 2021 it was almost 36 thousand.

Around 10.4 million people were registered in primary health care in August.

At the end of June, the Government opened around 900 vacancies for general and family medicine, representing 40% more of the number of newly graduated professionals, with the aim of attracting more professionals to primary health care.