The second two-day strike by doctors in Lisbon and the Tagus Valley began at 00:00 today, encompassing hospitals and health centers that were not covered by the strike that took place on September 13 and 14.
Called by the Independent Doctors’ Union (SIM), the regional strike, which lasts until midnight on Thursday, covers the Lisboa Norte, Lisboa Central, Lisboa Ocidental, Oeste, Médio Tejo hospital centers and the Doutor Fernando Fonseca (Amadora-Sintra) and Santarém hospitals, the Forças Armadas Hospital and the Caxias Prison Hospital.
According to SIM, the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences South, the Portuguese Institute of Blood and Transplantation and the Division of Intervention in Addictive Behaviors and Dependencies (DICAD) of the Lisbon and Tagus Valley Regional Health Administration are also affected by the strike.
Doctors from the Health Center Groups (ACES) of Lisboa Norte, Lisboa Central, Ocidental and Oeiras, Amadora, Sintra, Oeste Norte, Oeste Sul, Médio Tejo and Lezíria are also covered by the two-day strike.
According to SIM, the strike aims to demand that the government “respond effectively” to the union’s demands and that the ministers of Finance and Health present “a proposal for a salary scale that restores the career to the losses accumulated due to the erosion of inflation over the last decade and that positions the entire medical profession, including interns, with honor and justice in the Single Remuneration Table of the civil service”.
The minimum services due during the regional medical strike are those established in the collective labor regulations in force in the SNS, says SIM.
Negotiations between doctors’ unions and the Ministry of Health began in 2022, but so far there has been no agreement.
