The Government corrected the situation of hundreds of head nurses, supervisors, specialists and trainers who were left without points being counted for the purpose of progression in performance assessment due to legislative changes, the Nurses' Union (SE) announced today.
The Nurses' Union said, in a statement, that the Central Administration of the Health System (ACSS) sent this determination to the various Health entities in a communication at the beginning of the month, to which the SE had access, albeit unofficially.
“After a wide range of interventions, the Nurses Union finally saw the right to progression of nurses who had transitioned to the specialist nurse category due to competitions held after December 1, 2005 recognized”, he highlights.
The president of SE, Pedro Costa, states that many nurses “were surpassed in remuneration positions by colleagues who, in these competitions, had not accessed a higher category” with the application of Decree-law no. 80-B/2022, which aimed at unfreezing performance evaluation.
In practice, what happened is that nurses who had moved to a higher category in competitions held after December 31, 2004 “saw the points count for performance assessment purposes return to zero”, he explains.
When performance evaluations were unfrozen, “nurses who had not progressed to a higher category in these competitions accumulated more points and, therefore, were better positioned and received higher pay” after the application of the decree-law.
What the ACSS directive now says, explains Pedro Costa, “is basically what the Nurses Union defended in the various meetings with the Secretary of State for Health, Ricardo Mestre: nurses who progressed through the category through competition after December 31 2004 must have the points prior to that date counted for the purposes of progression in the performance assessment”.
“Social justice is thus restored”, highlights Pedro Costa, recalling that “colleagues, despite greater technical differentiation in their careers, were overtaken by others with less differentiation due to legislative changes and, above all, the decree-law that unfroze performance evaluation”.
Pedro Costa highlights that this situation generated “huge discomfort in the class”, especially among nurses who invested in postgraduate training.
In addition to being applied to specialist nurses, this regulation should also be applied to head nurses and supervisory nurses who progressed in their careers after December 31, 2004, “as well as to all nurses who, in the exercise of their duties, are responsible for training in service for a period of three or more years.”
“In all cases in which, due to the application of the Decree-Law (…) there has been a reversal of remuneration positions, the situation will have to be corrected”, argues Pedro Costa, regretting that it took “more than a year and an electoral period for the Ministry of Health to finally understand the mistake it made”.
Pedro Costa recalls that there are other demands that must be met urgently, including “the conclusion of the negotiation of the first Collective Labor Agreement for Nurses, which has been stopped since 2017”.
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