Today the National Union of Nurses is carrying out a strike across the country

A 24-hour strike begins this Monday at 8 a.m., called by the National Nurses Union (SNE), which claims the “lack of response and unavailability of the Minister of Health to initiate a negotiation process” with professionals.

The SNE, in a statement, accuses the Government of not responding to the “serious problems affecting patients” nor “to the calls from the President of the Republic for the Minister of Health to meet with the sector’s unions”.

The nurses defend the “negotiation of a Global Collective Bargaining Agreement applicable to nurses and the revision of the salary table”.

“The majority of nurses’ demands are related to defending the quality of nursing and patients’ access to timely and quality healthcare” reads the note from the SNE, where it proposes an improvement and “conditions for decent work, planning and organization of public service and a correct human resources management policy” and “increased response capacity, from primary health care, through hospital admissions, emergency services, operating rooms and the national network of integrated continuing care”.

The union platform asks nurses to “report all situations of potential failure of clinical safety, which could cause harm or cost the lives of patients” suggesting the delivery of “reporting statements to the Order of Nurses” and recommending that they not provide services in conditions of lack of clinical safety, as indicated by the profession’s ethical rules.

On Wednesday, the Minister of Health, Manuel Pizarro, said that the Government is examining the conditions to negotiate again with medical unions, recognizing that, despite being in full capacity, “it cannot look to the future as before of the political crisis”.

On Tuesday last week, the government official said that he is closing pending dossiers and received on Tuesday the Portuguese Nurses Union (SEP) about the reclassification of nurses’ careers, a matter that, according to the government, was already in the works. final phase of negotiations.