Several dozen nurses from different parts of the country gathered this Friday in front of the Ministry of Health in Lisbon in protest, timed to coincide with the second day of the national strike, demanding better working conditions.
During the protest, President of the Nursing Union of Portugal (SEP), José Carlos Martins, said various indicators of Friday’s strike commitment showed it to be higher than the numbers recorded on the first day of the strike, Wednesday. , which was about 60%.
The protest was convened by the AKP demanding a “nurse assessment” by replacing the wage parity of nurses with a career of senior technician and other medical professionals, early retirement as a risk compensation mechanism. and the difficulties of the profession and hiring more professionals.
“Health is a right, nothing can be done without it”, “Years of service cannot be stolen”, “The struggle continues in the offices and on the street” are some of the slogans chanted by nurses outside the Ministry of Health.
At the head of the congregation, nurses carry a banner that reads “SNA lacks nurses! Unclear. The government/Ministry of Finance fires them,” while others hold up signs saying “SNS needs nurses! The Ministry of Finance orders the dismissal of “” and “SN [centro hospitalar] Tamega-e-Suza needs nurses: the government “puts” 31 unemployed.”
The protest approved a motion in which the SEP states that “it is unacceptable and unacceptable for the Ministry of Health to continue not to provide necessary and fair answers to nurses’ problems, to propose a solution and not to schedule a meeting with the Union of Nurses” and which was delivered to the ministry.
Bloco de Esquerda (BE) leader Mariana Mortagua joined the fight of nurses, also recalling the fight of pharmacists and doctors, emphasizing that it is these professionals who bring “solutions for the SNS (National Health Service)”. .
“Solutions are the conditions that allow professionals to stay in social networks, and when we go to a hospital, a polyclinic, we understand the importance of these professionals, in particular nurses,” the bloc leader said, complaining about the approaches of various ministries of professions, such as nurses, doctors , teachers to drag out the problem, “leaving people for years and years without a solution to their problems.”
Mariana Mortagua explained that you cannot ask a nurse who “makes €1,000 or €1,000 a month and works endless hours” to tolerate SNS when “there is an employee on his side who performs the same functions, but with fewer responsibilities and earns more.” .
“The government prefers to spend 140 million euros on tasks, but does not want to invest this money in the careers of nurses and doctors,” he criticized, warning that when these professionals leave the SNS, there will be a “catastrophe” in the SNS.
Nuno Agostinho, a nurse at the São João Hospital in Porto, insisted on participating in the protest because of the “grievances” that he had witnessed over the years and which had intensified “recently”, and what he said evoked “a feeling of monstrous injustice “.
“Contrary to what the minister says, nurses were not valued. What happened was a fair progress for some nurses,” he told agency Luz Nuno Agostinho, highlighting that “there is still a huge discrimination within the class” regarding vacation days, for example, nurses with individual employment contracts have fewer vacation days for compared with colleagues with employment contracts in public positions.
About 10 emergency room nurses at the Vila Franca de Xira hospital were also present at the protest to express their dissatisfaction with what was happening in the facility, Marco Aniceto told Lusa.
“We are still waiting for the signing of the collective agreement by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance for another two years,” the nurse said, stressing that this situation is leading “to the dismantling of the hospital,” because. in the past two months, only 10 nurses have left the emergency service, and there are others who will leave in August, as well as “the dismantling of the public health service for the population of Vila Franca de Xira,” he warned.
Those who remain are overworked: “We have crazy schedules (…) each of us is currently working 50 more hours of overtime than we should have been hired under the contract,” lamented Marco Aniceto.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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