The Portuguese Nurses’ Union (SEP) today demanded that the new Minister of Health begin negotiations with a view to resolving the problems of the class, such as increasing salaries and counting all time served.
In a statement, the SEP said that in the next few days it will deliver a list of demands to the new Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, to demand the start of negotiations to resolve the nurses’ problems.
Among the problems, the SEP highlights the admission of more professionals with permanent contracts and the regularization of precarious situations, equal rights for all nurses regardless of the type of contract and the valorization of all nurses in the public sector through the immediate negotiation of a career change that includes a salary increase including a remunerated regime of exclusive dedication and risk compensation.
The union that represents the nurses is also demanding that all the time lost as a result of the imposition of SIADAP (the public administration’s evaluation system) be counted, that back pay be paid since 2018 and that all “injustices” be resolved, in particular the demand that all nurses currently in virtual positions be placed in the correct career positions.
Other demands put forward in the SEP’s charter are to change the current funding model for the organizations, more autonomy for the administrations of each of the institutions and measures to organize, operate and invest in the National Health Service in terms of human resources, medical devices and equipment with the aim of ensuring that diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation are carried out in the SNS.
The new Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, was a member of the Order of Pharmacists and chaired the Santa Maria Hospital in Lisbon for a year.
The prime minister-designate, Luís Montenegro, and the ministers of the XXIV Constitutional Government will be sworn in on Tuesday and the secretaries of state two days later, with the debate on the government program scheduled for April 11 and 12.