“The present decade of 2020-2030 will be marked by a high volume of retirements of physicians from the National Health Service (SNS). Around five thousand doctors are expected to retire in this period, in addition to the retirement of doctors who work exclusively in the private sector”, says the document by researchers Pedro Pita Barros and Eduardo Costa.

This report forms part of the chair in Health Economics, as part of the initiative for Social Equity, which results from a partnership between the “la Caixa” Foundation, BPI, and the faculty of economics, finance, and management at Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (New SBE).

The researchers also warn that the “problem of aging is asymmetrical in the national territory”, with the North, Centre and autonomous regions registering a “proportion of doctors aged over 65 years lower than the national average”.

“In addition to the regional asymmetry and by specialties, there is a sharp worsening over time. In 1996, around 11% of physicians registered with the Ordem dos Médicos were over 65 years old. The most current data, referring to December 2021, puts this proportion at 24%”, says the study.

The analysis indicates that, in terms of specialties, aging is more evident in tropical medicine (88.1% of doctors over 65 years old), in stomatology (53.8%), in paediatric surgery (43.6 %), clinical pathology (43.1%), cardiothoracic surgery (42.6%) and maxillofacial surgery (40.9%).

According to the data now released, this high level of aging "anticipates a wave of retirements" for the coming years.

Lisbon and the North, regions with the highest number of health professionals, “will be the most affected”, the report also points out, when estimating that the 2030s will be marked by a “substantially lower” volume of annual retirements.

Between 2030 and 2040, on average, less than 250 doctors will retire per year.

The document also adds that the aging rates of nurses are “substantially lower” than those of doctors, since, in 2019, less than 4% of these health professionals were over 65 years old.