The new president of the Order of Nurses (OE) defended today that the Government must definitively resolve the lack of professionals and “give dignity, respect and recognition” to a profession that “every day loses purchasing power”.
In an interview with the Lusa agency, Luís Filipe Barreira, who succeeds Ana Rita Cavaco, said that "there continues to be a lack of an adequate number of nurses in the country", something that the OE "cannot accept" because "it is in I risk people’s lives.”
«Portugal should be close to the average of OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] countries and is still far below in terms of the number of nurses. Today we are still witnessing the flight of many nurses because the country does not provide them with the conditions and nurses who gave everything during the Covid-19 pandemic and today are being fired», said Luís Filipe Barreira.
Elected on Wednesday night, Luís Filipe Barreira, until now vice-president of the OE, will take office on December 20th for a term that begins on January 1st, 2024.
«I believe I will have a mandate with a lot of work ahead. We are committed to building consensus with everyone and contributing to ensuring the centrality of the role of nurses in the health system», said the new president.
To Lusa, Luís Filipe Barreira recalled the 10 commitments of his candidacy, points that are strategic axes for the 2024/2027 mandate, having highlighted the challenges of the health system or the need to give greater autonomy to institutions.
«It is clear to all Portuguese that profound changes are needed in the healthcare system. We have to develop a new care model that is more community-based and defend the centrality of nurses in primary health care,” he argued.
Luís Filipe Barreira said that «the publication of the order that creates the working group to implement the specialty internship should be published soon», a promise, he recalled, from the current Minister of Health, Manuel Pizarro.
And, within this topic, the new president stressed that “it is important to increase professional development and development”, as well as “strengthening the training offer for nurses”.
Luís Filipe Barreira wants the profession to be given “dignity, respect and recognition”, namely through remuneration, as well as by reducing the retirement age and through the recognition of nurses as a risky profession with rapid wear and tear.
«Today, nurses are faced with unworthy pay. Nurses' salaries are increasingly close to the national minimum wage. Nurses have a huge loss of purchasing power (…). It is not the Order's competence to negotiate, but we will and will influence the Ministry of Health and the next Minister of Health", he said.
Luís Filipe Barreira was elected president for the 2024/2027 term with 71% of the votes, according to provisional data released by the organization that reveal abstention close to 80%.
Faced with these numbers, the new president said that “abstention is a problem in the country”, but assured that, even so, he is happy with the nurses' participation.
«If we compare with the results of 2015, when Ana Rita Cavaco ran for the first time and six lists were running, 15.000 nurses voted. At this moment, with a single list [to the national leadership], there were 17.300 voters,” she described.
Two lists applied for elections: List A applied for the National leadership and for all Regional Sections, while List B presented a candidacy only for the regional section of Madeira.
List B received the most votes in Madeira's regional bodies, with 51% of the votes.
The election took place electronically, with access to voting open from 00:00 on Monday, ending at 20:00 on Wednesday, mainland Portugal time.
The race to succeed Ana Rita Cavaco had yet another name, that of child and pediatric health specialist Mário André Macedo, who announced his candidacy on July 22, in Leiria, but who saw the list excluded on the grounds that that the delivery of documents took place after the deadline.
Ana Rita Cavaco, outgoing president, was prevented from running due to term limits, having spent seven years as leader.
According to the Statutes of the OE, created in 1998, the holders and members of the order's bodies are elected for four-year terms and cannot hold more than two consecutive terms.
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