This Saturday, the Independent Union of Physicians (SIM) issued an appeal to the Portuguese to understand the “inevitable limits” of next week’s strikes, saying “he really did everything” in negotiations with the government to avoid them.
The appeal is contained in an open letter to users of the National Health Service (SHC), published the day after a negotiating meeting with the Ministry of Health, which ended without an agreement, prompting the union to keep the announced strikes for the next few days.
“The appeal to strike is the result of the government’s total lack of interest in wanting to stop the collapse of the National Health Service (SNS),” the document, titled “What Our Patients Need to Know,” emphasizes.
Following Friday’s meeting, SIM decided to keep the national strike running from Tuesday to Thursday, as well as the month-long shutdown that starts on Monday for family doctors to work overtime, a protest that the union admitted will affect “many tens of thousands of consultations” at health centers.
In an open letter, the trade union structure led by Jorge Roque da Cunha deplores the “inevitable restrictions” that users will face, but calls for “understanding and solidarity”, arguing that “doctors are also on strike to improve the health care of the Portuguese.”
While there is no shortage of doctors in Portugal, the government is showing a “careless failure” to hire them for a social network that “does not survive without the millions of overtime hours and inhumane efforts” of these medical workers, according to the national union secretariat.
The union also adds that doctors want “decent wages consistent with their training and the responsibility of their profession, humane working hours and family time, and scientific renewal,” refusing “the government’s proposed 52-hour work week because it compromises clinical safety.”
Negotiations between the trade unions and the Government began in 2022 and were supposed to end at the end of June, according to the schedule previously established between the parties, but three more subsequent meetings have already taken place, ending without an agreement.
SIM and the National Federation of Physicians (FNAM) have criticized the lack of concrete proposals to revise the salary scale of doctors, which is one of the main issues on the negotiating table.
On Friday, the two trade union structures guaranteed that they would return to the negotiations scheduled for next Friday only if they received proposals from the Ministry of Health in advance.
In addition to the SIM strikes, FNAM also called for a strike on August 1 and 2, saying “all reasonable time has expired” in these negotiations, which began about 15 months ago.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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