About three dozen pharmacists gathered on Tuesday at the entrance to the main center of the Hospital and University Center of Coimbra (CHUC), striking for higher salaries and against the shortage of specialists in the National Health Service (SNS).
Holding posters and a banner with the inscription “SNS pharmacists into battle! Here’s to everyone’s health,” these health care workers advocate updating pay tables dating back to 1999 and fully accounting for seniority for promotions and career advancement. in 2017.
“At the moment, doctors, nurses, diagnosticians have already seen the restructuring of their remuneration table, more than once, and pharmacists, in addition to not having any changes since 1999, still have 80% of their specialists at the core of their careers,” condemned the president The National Union of Pharmacists (SNF), which went on strike.
According to Enrique Regengo, “six years after the end of his career, everything that should have been done has not been done and, even worse, the government has not even begun the promised dialogue with the union.”
Pharmacists, who are underrepresented in the SNS, are demanding that the government give their careers “respect and serious negotiations” with a salary update so that “there is at least a difference with other health professionals identical to what existed in 2008.”
“We don’t have enough personnel, but 80% of our people are at the bottom of the career ladder and salary scale from 1999. If we have a shortage of personnel and such working conditions, how can we recruit new generations into the SNA? “, asked the union leader.
The SNF President also said that we are currently seeing the departure of experienced pharmacists from the SNS, “who must train new generations” in three specialties – hospital pharmacy, clinical analysis and human genetics.
“At any moment we will have a service in which there may be hospitals, doctors and nurses, but then the professionals who form the basis of the whole service and who enable doctors and nurses to work do not exist,” he warned.
Citing a study by the Universidad Nova de Lisboa, Enrique Regengo pointed to a shortage of about 250 specialists “simply to provide day-to-day services.”
The SNF president predicts that today’s strike will have a turnout of about 90%, identical to that of the protest that swept the south and islands on July 24.
A national strike is planned for the 19th if the government continues to fail to dialogue, stressed the trade unionist, who hopes for a change in the trusteeship relationship.
In addition to Coimbra, today the strike is taking place in the districts of Braga, Bragança, Porto, Viana do Castelo, Vila Real, Aveiro, Castelo Branco, Coimbra, Guarda, Leiria and Viseu.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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