Nurses from Lisbon’s health centers are on strike today to demand better salary conditions and career progression and at the end of the morning they will deliver a motion to the Ministry of Health .
Called by the Portuguese Nurses Union (SEP), the strike will take place in the morning and afternoon shifts, between 08:00 and 24:00, covering the health centers of the Local Health Units of Amadora /Sintra, Tagus Estuary, Loures-Odivelas, Santa Maria, São José and Western Lisbon.
According to the union, with this strike, primary health care nurses in Lisbon intend to demand the counting of points for career progression purposes, with updated payment and retroactive payments since 2018.
They also demand the operationalization of the so-called “career accelerator”, the transition to the category of specialist nurse for all professionals who did not transition due to their “legitimate exercise of their maternity rights”, as well as the effective engagement of all nurses who are currently in a precarious situation.
In a statement, the SEP also lamented the “absence of reinforcement and investment” in the National Health Service and in primary care in the emergency plan for the sector recently approved by the Government, a document that it considers to be centralized “in response to the disease and the strong involvement of private health groups”.
The nurses in Lisbon are carrying out this strike one day after the SEP met with the Ministry of Health, with the two parties reaching an agreement on the negotiating protocol, that is, the terms and matters that will be the subject of negotiation.
At 11:30, a motion with the demands is scheduled to be delivered to the Ministry of Health.
