Gov’t recruits 117 doctors to bolster staff in indigenous districts

Brazil’s Health Ministry is calling 117 doctors for work in indigenous communities. The agents—who are either born in Brazil or hold Brazilian citizenship having graduated overseas—come under the Mais Médicos project to reinforce the staff.

The medics should be distributed across 29 districts. Fourteen agents have completed their training and will go to the Yanomami territory in Roraima state, which is facing a humanitarian crisis. The move brings the number of indigenous health doctors up 51.5 percent. As it stands today, 227 professionals are active in 34 districts.

“The indigenous people do not die of diabetes, because there is no sugar in their diet, or hypertension, as they don’t consume salt. The cause of death of our native people is hunger, malnutrition, and malaria. The intervention usually includes antibiotics, food, and dignified living,” Nésio Fernandes, secretary for the ministry’s Primary Health Care, says in a statement.