The president of Fnam, Joana Bordalo e Sá, announced a meeting with public health entities (EPE) on July 1 at DGERT in Porto to “restart the negotiation process.”
“As [the minister] Ana Paula Martins did not comply with the collective bargaining rules in 2024, and now at the beginning of 2025, despite Fnam’s demands for negotiation, it was not conducted with Fnam. Therefore, we activated DGERT to initiate the negotiation process, particularly regarding the Collective Labor Agreement,” she stated.
On March 10, Fnam held a two-hour meeting with the health ministry.
At that time, the Health Ministry denied negotiating with Fnam, claiming that what was taking place was a conciliation process with local health units on collective labor regulation.
The government signed a salary and medical career revaluation agreement on December 30, 2024, but only with the Independent Doctors’ Union (SIM).
The federation activated “the available legal mechanisms” to ensure compliance with collective bargaining, arguing that the minister’s refusal to negotiate with Fnam constituted “a serious violation of the law.”
Fnam sent letters to DGERT and the Ministry of Labor, Solidarity and Social Security, as well as letters to the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic, demanding that Ana Paula Martins “comply with the law” and call upon the federation and other involved entities for negotiations that consider the counterproposals presented.
Joana Bordalo e Sá also expressed “great concern” about the government’s health program, emphasizing that it does not foresee solutions to attract more doctors to the National Health Service (SNS).
“The solutions need to be very structural and must start with serious negotiations with doctors. From that standpoint, we continue to offer solutions and are available to meet and ensure the successful implementation of some solutions (…) related to our career, career valuation, and working conditions revision, to bring in more doctors,” she emphasized.
