According to Rui Marroni, from the Portuguese Nurses' Union (SEP), who called for the strike and protest, Rui Marroni explained to Lusa News Agency, despite the decree-law and guidelines published last November that intended to "speed up the process", this has not yet happened in this Regional Health Administration.

After the four days of strike at a national level, in November of last year a decree-law and a guideline was published to help speed up the process, but so far "this has not happened in this RSA", he said.

"We do not understand why," said the union leader, explaining that ARSLVT has so far not responded to meeting requests sent by the SEP. "The ARSLVT is one of six institutions in the country that has not yet met with the SEP," he added.

He explained that this ARSLVT covers four districts - Lisbon, Setúbal, Santarém and the southern part of the district of Leiria -, with about 1.5 million families and 2,800 nurses and said that, "to have at least one nurse for each family" it would be necessary to hire 1,500 more.

"Naturally nurses would still be needed for other units, (...) which means that what is needed would be more than that number", he added.