Unions spent months failing to broker agreement with PS Socialists
In what has to be seen as a first, the head of Portugal’s national federation of doctors, has left a meeting led by the minister of health in a positive mood.
Joana Bordalo e Sá’s ‘locking of horns’ with the last health minister – and disappointment with practically everything he brought to the table – was part and parcel of almost every journalistic text on ‘the doctors’ struggle’ over the last two years.
But today, after the first meeting with incoming PSD minister Ana Paula Martins, Ms Bordalo e Sá, is credited as having ‘hailed’ the new minister’s stance.
She told waiting journalists that the new ministerial team had a “more serious attitude and a different commitment” to that of the last.
The FNAM leader also explained she had the opportunity to present the federation’s main proposals, including the issue of pay scales, which she argued is “very important to update, as well as other measures that have to do with working conditions”.
‘We’ve presented all our proposals and there’s a commitment from the other side that in about a month’s time, at least by May 27, we’ll be back at the table to sign a negotiating protocol. Let’s hope so, we have that expectation, the doctors have that expectation”.
At the same time, Bordalo e Sá warned that “the SNS (State health service) can’t wait any longer”, it needs more doctors, which is why an “effort on both sides” is needed to sort problems out.
Asked if the government was open to a 30% salary increase, Joana Bordalo e Sá said that at least they were open to hearing the proposals. It is not just a question of salary increases, she added: “It’s necessary to compensate doctors for the loss of purchasing power over the last decade, and that’s not all” (referring to the issue of working conditions, the return to a 35-hour working week, the integration of junior doctors – who make up a third of the medical workforce in the SNS – onto the permanent career ladder, a ‘demand’ that has “no budgetary impact whatsoever”.
The FNAM leader also emphasised issues related to family doctors, public health doctors and hospital doctors, stressing “the federation will never be in a position to accept a loss of rights”.
Before entering this morning’s meeting, Bordalo e Sá reiterated that FNAM was coming to the negotiating table “in good faith, with solutions on various issues” to improve the working conditions of Portugal’s doctors, who continue to be among the “lowest paid in Europe”.
SIM, these days led by Nuno Rodrigues, also emerged from the morning’s discussions ‘upbeat’, describing the new minister as someone who had shown herself “throughout the meeting” to be “a person of dialogue and willingness to solve problems”.
This is lightyears from the impressions conveyed following meetings with former health minister Manuel Pizarro, who currently reportedly has his sights on a ‘top job’ at Porto City Council (come next year’s municipal elections).
Source material: Lusa
