"The nurses are ever-more determined to keep on with this fight and we will only stop when the government really makes a serious commitment to negotiate with nurses," the president of the Democratic Union of Portuguese Nurses ( Sindepor), Carlos Ramalho, said today (Monday) as he took part in a protest outside Lisbon’s Hospital Santa Maria – one of five where the strike has been running for more than a month.
Ramalho said it was "very likely" that unions would extend the strike or issue a new strike warning when it ends on 31 December. The stoppage is currently resulting in the postponement of around 500 scheduled operations day, according to union figures.
"The nurses are already planning other forms of struggle,” Ramalho said. “We will not rest here."
According to the union, getting on for 100 percent of members are taking part in the action.
On Friday, the Ministry of Health issued a statement in which it outlined part of the written opinion that it had requested on the subject of the strike from the consultative council of the attorney-general's office. This stated that the strike call in itself is lawful, but warns that if it is up to each nurse to decide the day, time and duration of the stoppage, then the protest is "illicit".
Ramalho noted the first part of the opinion but stressed that he had not seen the full text.
The current strike was called after a group of nurses set up a fund-raising campaign to help colleagues who strike and lose their salary as a result.