Doctors end today the three-day national strike to demand concrete proposals from the Government on the valorization of the career and salary scales in the negotiations that have been going on since 2022 and that should continue on Friday.
Although this national strike ends today, the doctors’ protest continues with family doctors’ strikes over overtime until August 22 and additional production in National Health Service (NHS) hospitals.
According to the Independent Union of Doctors (SIM), which guarantees that membership in the first two days was around 90% globally, the strike was intended to force the Government to present concrete proposals in the negotiations that have been going on for more than a year on the revision of salary scales.
Another round of negotiations is scheduled for Friday, but SIM and the National Federation of Doctors (FNAM) assured last week that they would only be available to attend the meeting if they received the proposals in advance, which Health Minister Manuel Pizarro assured would happen.
On Wednesday, the SIM delivered a letter to the Prime Minister at the São Bento Palace with a “very strong appeal” for the Government to implement its proposals for the new full dedication regime, emergency services, the organization and discipline of medical work and the revision of the salary scale, the matters that are on the negotiating table between the parties.
“After exceeding the formally established negotiating deadline, the Government, in an irresponsible manner, declined to present concrete negotiating proposals”, the letter also states, warning that in Portugal there has been an “erosion of more than 22% of medical salaries in the last 10 years”.
The doctors’ protest continues on August 1 and 2, with a new national strike called by FNAM, the second scheduled by the union structure in about a month, after the stoppage that took place on July 5 and 6.
