The Portuguese Nurses’ Union (SEP) has sharply criticised the Health Minister following her visit to Portimão Hospital yesterday, Monday 18 November, accusing her of ignoring a shortfall of 2,000 nurses in the Algarve and saying that to believe the region is prepared for winter “can only be a Christmas wish”.
According to the union, the Algarve is missing 1,500 general nurses and around 500 specialist nurses. The shortage, it argues, has been worsened by the absence of staff-retention measures, while new hires fall far short of what is required. The comments were made in a statement issued after the minister’s visit to the region.
On Monday, Health Minister Ana Paula Martins and Tiago Botelho, chair of the board of the Algarve Local Health Unit (ULS), insisted in Portimão that the region is ready to cope with the expected rise in winter A&E attendances.
But the SEP says the minister “continues to refuse to instruct the local health administration to pay retroactive wages owed from 2018 to December 2021”, and is also blocking “the opening of recruitment competitions for the Specialist Nurse and Nurse Manager categories, stalling any prospect of professional progression”.
The union added that if the minister’s aim in visiting Algarve facilities is to assess whether services are prepared for the expected surge in emergency demand, “yet she ignores the lack of staff, specifically nurses, and particularly in Primary Care, then her wish that ‘those who can be treated locally should not go to A&E’ will remain just that: a wish”.
The union is calling for discussions on a much needed “recruitment plan to bring in more health professionals capable of ensuring 24/7 care”, including in maternity units, paediatric emergency departments and Primary Care. Such a plan, it argues, would enable “better local provision, including home visits, across all areas, for example, in community mental health”.
This comes following news last week that Portugal will face on December 11 its first general strike in 12 years, to protest against the centre-right minority government’s planned labour law reforms, which unions argue harm workers’ rights.
Both the communist-leaning CGTP and moderate UGT unions on Thursday backed staging Portugal’s first general walk-out since June 2013, when the country was forced to slash public spending in exchange for international aid after being engulfed in the eurozone debt crisis.
In their sights is a draft labour law reform presented in July by the government of Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, whose party lacks an outright majority in parliament.
In particular, his government hopes to simplify firing procedures, extend the allowed length of fixed-term contracts and expand the minimum services required in the event of a strike.
“It’s a flat no,” the UGT said in a statement, branding the proposal “a reform of labour law for the bosses”.
At a rally in Lisbon earlier this month, which organisers say drew tens of thousands of people, the CGTP’s Secretary-General Tiago Oliveira slammed the proposal as “a brutal attack” on workers’ rights.
Montenegro urged the unions to be “responsible”, arguing that “nothing justifies a general strike”.
The prime minister defended the reforms as necessary to “make the economy more productive and dynamic”.
Source: Sul Informação/LUSA
Photo credit: Elizabete Rodrigues
