The National Nurses Union (SNE) began a 08-hour strike today at 00:24 am due to the “lack of response and unavailability of the Minister of Health to initiate a negotiation process” with professionals.
In a statement, the SNE accused the Government of not responding to the “serious problems affecting patients” nor “to the calls from the President of the Republic for the Minister of Health to meet with the sector's unions”.
Therefore, “given the manifest lack of response and unavailability of the Minister of Health to initiate a negotiation process with nurses”, the SNE called for a national strike, “to which new forms of struggle will be added”.
Nurses demand “the negotiation of a Global Collective Bargaining Agreement applicable to nurses and the revision of the salary table”.
The SNE states that “the majority of Nurses' demands are related to defending the quality of nursing and patients' access to timely and quality healthcare”, proposing “dignified working conditions, planning and organization of public service and a correct human resources management policy”, with “increased response capacity, from primary health care, through hospital admissions, emergency services, operating rooms and the national network of integrated continued care”.
To nurses, the SNE asks them to “report all situations of potential failure of clinical safety, which could cause harm or cost their lives”, advising them to submit “reporting statements to the Order of Nurses” and recommending that they do not provide services in conditions of lack of clinical safety, in accordance with its ethical rules.
On Wednesday, Health Minister Manuel Pizarro said that the Government is examining the conditions for negotiating again with medical unions, recognizing that, despite being fully functional, “it cannot look to the future as before the crisis policy".
On Tuesday last week, the government official said that he is closing pending dossiers and received on Tuesday the Portuguese Nurses Union (SEP) about the reclassification of nurses' careers, a matter that, according to the government, was already in the works. final phase of negotiations.
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