The FNAM held its first direct negotiation meeting today in Porto with the Public Business Entities (EPE) in Health, represented by Carlos Martins, an administrator of ULS Santa Maria. The aim is to establish a Collective Labor Agreement (ACT) that enhances the medical career “without yielding rights and to defend the National Health Service.”
“This was a direct negotiation meeting imposed by FNAM after enforcing collective bargaining rules, following an unjustified refusal by the Ministry of Health, led by Ana Paula Martins, to negotiate with the syndicate representing the most doctors in the SNS,” FNAM’s president stated to Lusa news agency at the conclusion of the meeting.
Joana Bordalo e Sá emphasized the obligation for FNAM to negotiate the ACT with the EPE, aiming to enhance the medical career and ensure progression and improved working conditions without risking previous gains.
“There was a good openness to start this negotiation, and the possibility of signing a transitional agreement as early as August was admitted. This could include critical measures such as part-time work at 36 hours, an exact reduction of one hour in continuous work, the application of compensatory rest for holiday work to all doctors, and aligning rights between doctors with individual employment contracts and those with public employment contracts,” she revealed.
The FNAM leader noted that the existing collective labor agreement remains in force and continues to protect doctors.
FNAM presented the restoration of a 35-hour workweek for all doctors without loss of salary and the 12 hours of mandatory weekly emergency duty, “without exceeding the annual overtime limit,” as issues for improvement in the ACT, as noted by the management units.
The integration of medical internship into the career, training support, enjoyment of compensatory rest after working on Sundays and holidays “without impediments and expiry,” restoration of lost vacation days in recent years, and enhancements to parental measures were other topics recorded by the EPE.
Joana Bordalo e Sá stressed FNAM’s commitment to this negotiation “with firmness, transparency, and seriousness”: “We remain the voice of the doctors. We will not relinquish our dignity, rights, or the full enhancement of the medical career in the SNS (…) and it is with this strength that we will negotiate and improve the collective labor agreement.”
She highlighted that the objective of this agreement is to prevent more doctors from leaving the SNS: “What we are witnessing today – and Luís Montenegro [prime minister] has done nothing to reverse the situation – is the lack of doctors, and he is responsible for it,” she criticized.
“We are moving towards 1.7 million users without a family doctor. We continue to have closed emergency services in maternity, 42 babies born in ambulances, in addition to the waiting times in emergencies,” she explained.
“The SNS must respond, and that can only be done with doctors,” she warned, hoping to resolve this situation “once and for all” in future meetings with the EPE and the Government, scheduled for the third week of August and the second half of September, respectively.
“This openness was demonstrated by the other party, and therefore, we understand it is the way forward,” concluded the trade unionist.
