The Sindicato dos Enfermeiros Portugueses (SEP) has accused the Health Minister of preventing the hiring of nurses at the Unidade Local de Saúde (ULS) in Braga, allegedly to carry out a plan to privatize the ULS.
This claim was made public on Wednesday evening, in a statement titled “Unidade Local de Saúde de Braga despede cerca de 40 Enfermeiros por imposição da Ministra da Saúde”.
The SEP stated that “the plan to transfer management to a PPP [public-private partnership] is the only justification.” The union further elaborated, “The Health Minister/Government is taking the ‘less clean’ path […] to ensure the ‘appetite’ of private health economic groups.”
In their communiqué, SEP detailed that in April 2025, 40 nurses were hired under the “summer contingency plan”. In July, during a meeting with the same union, the Board of Directors of ULS “acknowledged that these nurses were essential to maintain assistive capacity”.
“They further informed that they had the permission from oversight to extend previously made contracts under the Winter Contingency Plan for up to four years,” SEP added.
According to SEP, ULS Braga intended to establish new contracts with these nurses, who had already submitted required documents to Human Resources for signing new contracts on Wednesday, October 1.
However, circumstances seemed to have shifted overnight.
“Yesterday, they were informed via email,” the union reported, that by superior orders, from oversight and ACSS [Central Administration of the Health System], “they could not hire the concerned nurses”.
The statement from the union denounced it as “shameful” that Ana Paula Martins and the entire Government are “imposing limits on the definitive hiring of nurses (and other workers) to fulfill their plan to privatize the ULS Braga, jeopardizing the immediate assistive activity” of the health unit.
The union has also requested a meeting with the ULS Board of Directors to clarify the situation and plans to hold a plenary session with the nurses to decide on actions against the situation.
Notícias ao Minuto has reached out to the Health Ministry, headed by Ana Paula Martins, to understand the nuances of the case and is awaiting a response.
