The rolling three-day strike by Portugal’s nurses will cover the Algarve on Thursday.
Strike action began on Tuesday in Lisbon and the Tagus Valley and continues tomorrow with nursing staff employed in the Alentejo region withdrawing labour.
The Algarve will be hit during the peak summer tourism season on Thursday 13th August.
The Union agrees that the Algarve will experience more problems in health cover as there are so many tourists in the region, with the high temperatures increasing demand for medical services.
José Carlos Martins from the Portuguese Nurses' Union said today that "dissatisfaction is very deep and all of us have reason to strike."
Martins recognises that the greatest impact of strike will be in the Algarve because the population has doubled from 700,000 people to about 1.5 million, putting health services under maximum pressure.
Dr Pedro Nunes, president of the Board of Directors of the Hospitals of the Algarve, considers it as "unfortunate to strike in August in the Algarve" since "we are experiencing more than a thousand cases per day, when a normal amount during a period of winter ‘flu is 600-800 per day at the peak. At this time of year we have a second peak and some days we have 1,100-1,200 emergencies"
Nunes commented that "there is no reason to do with the hospitals that justifies this strike. These are financial issues which all are suffering from. "
The Health System’s Central Administrator remarked that he is "surprised" with the timing of the strike, as negotiations are ongoing.
