The president of the federation announced that in the motion approved in Viana do Castelo, during the last day of the congress, there was an appeal for “the participation of all doctors, affirming that the defense of labor rights is inseparable from the defense of the medical profession and the National Health Service (SNS).”
“The National Federation of Doctors is reaffirming its objectives, which include the fight for fair wages, dignified working conditions, reintegration of internal doctors into the career, and the unwavering defense of a public, universal, accessible, and close SNS,” stated Joana Bordalo e Sá.
The official mentioned it is “unacceptable that the minister Ana Paula Martins replaces the concept of SNS with a system that dilutes the public sector and relinquishes State responsibility.”
“We reject this vision and reaffirm that the SNS is a National Health Service and a constitutional commitment to citizens,” she added.
“When those working in the SNS are weakened, the SNS itself is weakened. This is a real risk to population care.”
Joana Bordalo e Sá noted that the government’s labor package “represents serious risks for doctors and the SNS, as it presupposes more precarious ties and deregulation of work in the form of schedule flexibility, which will increase difficulty in reconciling professional and personal life, and above all, an erosion of labor protection.”
“This labor package will also weaken doctors, create more precarious ties, deregulate schedules, and increase the fatigue of those already at their limit. This flexibility they talk about is not true flexibility. It’s unpredictability, it’s exhaustion. When those working in the SNS are weakened, the SNS itself is weakened. This is a real risk to population care. Faced with this situation, we could not remain silent, and the National Federation of Doctors joins the general strike,” she explained.
Joana Bordalo e Sá pointed out that the “few” changes to labor legislation presented to FNAM reflect “something very poorly designed, confused, and not in line with what is necessary, which is to integrate doctors providing services into SNS structures.”
“These doctors did not leave the SNS by choice; they were pushed out of the SNS. If we want them to work within the SNS structures, we must ensure fair wages and dignified working conditions for all doctors to return to the SNS, to structures with stable and not precarious ties,” she stressed.
The president of FNAM highlighted that “service providers ensure hours and hours of work in emergency services from north to south of the country, and considered that their ‘transition’ to the SNS ‘cannot be in any way an abrupt transition at the risk of emergency services closing.'”
“What we argue is that service providers must be integrated into the SNS structures so that in fact all services can be open, specifically gynecology and obstetrics emergency services,” she explained.
In light of “the lack of planned measures for SNS doctors,” Joana Bordalo e Sá foresees that “chaos could be even greater this winter, with waiting hours in emergency services, perhaps closed emergency services and not only in gynecology, obstetrics, pediatrics, orthopedics.”
FNAM challenges “the Luís Montenegro government to sit at the table, seriously, transparently, and negotiate measures to have more doctors in the SNS.”
“If Luís Montenegro lacks the political will, he is leading the SNS to its breakdown and, faced with underinvestment in the SNS, we see the private sector investing more and more… because they know Luís Montenegro will give them returns.”
The official highlighted, “Luís Montenegro has completely ignored doctors and all SNS professionals and, therefore, is responsible for this situation and for every pregnant woman who travels kilometers, has her baby in an ambulance, on the roadside, or on the hard ground of a street.”
[News updated at 13:15]
