Minutes before the ‘commemorations’ of the 45th anniversary of Portugal’s state health service got underway in Lisbon this afternoon, a rowdy flash mob appeared, ostensibly to ‘pay homage to the doctors and other health professionals, and above all users, who have resisted the degradation of the SNS over all these years’. Slogans were chanted: “Concerned pregnant women, indignant women”, “Health is a right, without it nothing can be done”, “Birth with dignity, protect maternity hospitals” and “The people deserve the SNS” as 20 or so members of FNAM (the national federation of doctors) essentially drew attention to their ‘struggle’, and the woes of the SNS which have been indelibly engraved into the nation’s psyche by endless media reports through the summer.
