The President of the Central Authority of the Health System (ACSS) guaranteed on Sunday that doctors who have joined the new overtime system will receive the appropriate allowance and that delays may be related to hospital services.
“In the coming months, everything will be put in order and everyone will have the right to what they worked for,” ACSS President André Trindade said in a statement to Lucé.
The issue concerns a system of additional payments to encourage overtime work in emergency services, the decree-law for which was published on July 12 in the newspaper Diário da República.
Doctors who worked overtime in the National Health Service (NHS) emergency services in July have not received the corresponding bonus payment this month, according to Observador and RTP.
André Trindade explained to Luce that overtime pay is the responsibility of the local health departments (ULS), remembering, however, that compliance with this regime is voluntary and requires approval from the director of emergency services and the hospital’s chief physician.
“On the one hand, we have this verification work, which takes time, and on the other hand, there is still the process of parameterizing the ULS systems,” he said.
According to the person in charge, ULS administrative services must calculate overtime hours worked by doctors (based on 40-hour blocks) because the calculation is done “based on the greatest number of hours worked in excess of the annual limit.”
“This calculation may not be made at the end of the month itself (…) Usually, payment usually occurs no later than the second month after the completion of this extraordinary work,” he said.
Recalling that the new regime is aimed at “stabilizing and strengthening emergency medical teams” during the summer holidays, the person in charge assured that the work carried out by doctors who are authorized and qualified to do so is a “right.”
“There may be a greater or lesser delay, but that is their right, and that delay may differ from ULS to ULS depending on the internal delay in confirming the need or not, so it cannot be said that in a month everything will be in order, because a lot of it has to do with the time it took to validate these processes internally,” he noted.
Andre Trindade, however, assured that this is the doctor’s right and that overtime pay will be calculated from July 1.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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