“In these five days [of striking] 1,000 surgeries will be postponed, at these three hospitals,” said José Correia Azevedo, leader of the National Federation of Nurses’ Unions (FENSE), which called the strike.
Portuguese nurses began a five-day strike at midnight on Monday, protesting the stalemate in negotiating the profession’s collective bargaining agreement, negotiations which began a year ago.
Azevedo said no great changes were expected for the duration of the action, as “the teams, when they receive the strike notice, start drawing up a working plan, which has been prepared for all five days.”
In terms of the impact the strike is expected to have had on consultations and urgent surgeries, the union leader said that minimum services were guaranteed to “prevent situations reaching a point of no-return.”
“In primary care we will continue to support those patients that are dependent and have no resources nearby, and we will not make them travel to the hospitals,” he said.
At the start of the strike, Azevedo told Lusa News Agency that the reasons for the strike include the “stalemate in negotiations” on the proposal for the collective bargaining agreement put forward by the nurses in August 2017.
The government said the agreement would be reached in September 2017, but negotiations have been at a standstill since then.
The nurses plan to create a special nursing career, which includes the category of specialist nurse, and are calling for career progression to be unfrozen, noting that the State owes Nurses 13 years, 7 months and 25 days of career progression. They also demand a review of pay grades.
Back in May, the Portuguese Nurses Union (SEP) had warned that a number of hospitals throughout Portugal could see their services crippled, even closed, if the government did not approve the hiring of more nurses in the very near future.
The union’s alert came after it was revealed that more than a hundred nurses have been lost from Portugal’s largest hospital, Lisbon’s Santa Maria, since January, forcing the unit to reduce the number of available beds and close a surgery section due to the shortage of human resources.
The Portuguese Nurses’ Society has repeatedly also warned that patients are at risk due to a shortage of nurses at the nation’s hospitals.
According to Society President Ana Rita Cavaco, nurses are exhausted and incapable of delivering quality care and in a safe manner.
The Portuguese Health Service currently employs 41,000 nurses, but officials argue that an additional 30,000 are needed to meet the demands of this profession.