Unions representing health professionals argued today in parliament that the lack of investment in the National Health Service (SNS) “is a problem that has been going on since the 1980s”, criticizing the lack of career development.
The National Federation of Doctors (Fnam), the Portuguese Nurses’ Union (SEP), the National Union of Senior Health Technicians in the Diagnostic and Therapeutic Areas (STSS) and the National Federation of Unions of Workers in Public and Social Functions (FNSTFPS) were being heard in the Health committee at the Portuguese Parliament, where they expressed difficulties in negotiating with the Ministry of Health.
“This is a problem that has been going on since the 1980s, from the moment we started thinking about the SNS in a different light and with a different philosophy,” said Elisabete Gonçalves, leader of the FNSTFPS.
Elisabete Gonçalves told MPs that she couldn’t understand the results of the emergency health plan.
“Nowhere does it talk about the need to hire workers for the emergency services and the SNS. There is talk of many measures, but essentially there is talk of the relationship that the SNS will have with both the social sector and the private sector and, in essence, with the sterilization of services or the allocation of areas to these sectors,” he said.
Elisabete Gonçalves pointed out that the Ministry of Health is currently short 2,124 workers compared to 2023.
“There are fewer of them. There were several workers who were hired during the pandemic who stayed working in the NHS, but little by little, as they were on short-term contracts, they left and weren’t replaced,” she said.
For her part, the coordinator of Fnam, Joana Bordalo e Sá, said that the general strike scheduled by this federation for July 23 and 24 “is a wake-up call” so that the SNS can hire more doctors.
“We have to improve working conditions and value our careers,” she said.
Joana Bordalo e Sá said that Fnam “accepted all the points that the government wanted to include in the negotiating protocol” with regard to evaluation, discussion of the training of medical interns and rules on the organization and discipline of work.
“We understood that the negotiation of these three items would be quite quick. (…) And although we accepted all these points, it was very important to have the issue of the basic salary scales and what this government presented to us was a push of months and months to discuss these three previous issues and to throw the discussion of the salary scales into 2025,” he noted.
SEP leader Guadalupe Simões also explained that what went wrong in the negotiations with the government was the imposition of two salary scales, which don’t value the qualifications of the professionals, the integrated system for managing and evaluating performance in public administration (SIADAP), the freeze on progression between 2005 and 2018, and the ban on progression between 2011 and 2018.
“There are a number of things that have gone wrong that have taken away the expectations of professionals to develop,” she warned.
The trade unionist considered that the emergency plan that has been presented is a “sickness plan”, pointing out that there are “many problems in the emergency rooms”.
Guadalupe Simões recalled, for example, that in the Algarve “there are a number of problems that have not been resolved”, noting that “100 nurses have left the Portimão emergency room alone”.
“Once again, the situation in the Algarve is chaotic,” he said.
Fernando Zorro, from the STSS, said that the problem in the emergency room “reflects a structural failure in the planning of the SNS”.
“We go from plan to plan, from emergency to emergency, and we don’t really have a plan for the SNS. And we don’t, because it’s never been invested in,” he said.
