Nurses gathered in Porto for regularization of labor contracts
A group of nurses gathered today in front of the Santo António hospital, in Porto, to demand the hiring of more professionals, the regularization of precarious employment relationships and the counting of all working hours for progression purposes.
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"We are demanding the hiring of more nurses and the permanent hiring of all those who are on fixed-term contracts. It is unacceptable that the boards of directors complain that they do not have authorization from the guardianship to hire, even though the activity plans include the number of professionals needed. It is unacceptable that the government is the one promoting precariousness", considered Fátima Monteiro, regional leader of the Portuguese Nurses Union (SEP).
In statements to Lusa, the union leader stated that "many of these colleagues are experiencing 'burnout' due to the excessive workload they are constantly facing".
"And there is another problem that is the responsibility of the guardianship, which is to provide guidance to the institutions so that all working hours worked by nurses, whether they are on fixed-term contracts or on green receipts, are counted for the purposes of progression", she added.
She argued that "it was not by their own will that they spent six or seven years on fixed-term contracts. These years do not count towards career progression, it is as if they had not existed".
"It is the sole and exclusive competence of the Minister of Health and the Government to provide guidance to the institutions" to solve these problems, stressed Fátima Monteiro, referring to the fact that "some nurses were hired during the COVID-19 period and remain in the same precarious situation today".
In her view, "there is no National Health Service that can provide an adequate response if it does not have its professionals motivated. The program of this government included the valorization of nurses, since there is no motivation without adequate hiring and without changing the salary grid".
"These are old problems that generate great discontent in the profession and that are the entire responsibility of the government", she stressed.
On the 10th, nurses went on strike to demand the beginning of the negotiation process with the signing of a memorandum of understanding on matters such as point counting and the nursing career, for example.
After a first meeting with the unions representing doctors, nurses and pharmacists, starting the salary negotiations demanded by the union structures, the Ministry of Health said that the negotiation process will be resumed on May 27, expecting that it will take place on a basis of "good faith, commitment and responsibility" and that it will meet the expectations of professionals "as much as possible".
Read Also: Porto participates in a project to make childbirth more physiological and safe (Portuguese version)
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