Portugal’s nurses union SEP is ‘out on strike today’ as doctors have scheduled strike action for later this month, along with public sector workers.
Police staged protests yesterday and have more in the pipeline.
Portugal’s public sector is as unhappy today as it has been with most previous governments.
Nurses’ sense of outrage centres on the poor way in which they feel they are being treated, particularly when it comes to advancing within their careers.
Discontent with the manner in which the SNS public health service is being run is ratcheting up from previous attempts to somehow oust the health minister, Ana Paula Martins, who keeps insisting she will not resign – no matter what the dismal results of her tenure.
Today, reports describe how nine out of 10 Family Health Units (USF) have reported shortages of basic supplies in the last year, from vaccines, to compresses, to toner for printers.
According to the annual study that assesses the state of primary healthcare, only one in three units said they had “sufficient clinical equipment”.
Of the 90% of USFs that reported basic supply shortages, 30% said this occurred more than 10 times during the year – with replenishment delays of more than two days in 77% of cases.
The authors of the study call for ‘a new mission’ for Primary Health Care (PHC), arguing that the problems ‘continue year after year’ and range from ‘clinical integration’ (referral/referral of users to specialists in hospitals) to digital (lack of interoperability), including contractualisation (incentives) and workload (size of user lists).
The aim “is to have a new management structure, which can continue under the same administration, with a unit dedicated solely to primary healthcare.”
This year’s study is based on responses from coordinators of 538 USFs, corresponding to 77.6% of the Family Health Units existing at the start of the study.
As for the facilities, 44% classify them “inadequate”, as do 49% for air conditioning systems and 27% for cleaning.
In short, the discontent of medical and non-medical personnel who work in primary healthcare is grounded in the current reality.
Data from the study also shows that only 7.3% of USFs prefer the system of ‘remote medical consultations’, and almost 60% complain that they lack the necessary IT equipment for them.
There is also the question of ‘autonomy’: the study admits that it is “worrying that almost half of the teams continue to feel their autonomy is limited” and call for greater financial and management autonomy in primary health care.”
Thus, the background for unions’ strike action, which today is tempered by the requirement for ‘minimum services’.
Different hospitals/ health units will be affected in different ways. In Lisbon, for example, the consultations and surgeries are being postponed because, in hospitals like Santa Maria, there has been a 100% nurse walkout from the surgical bloc alone.
This pressure of ‘discontent’ is habitual as governments discuss their spending plans (State Budget) for the coming year.
Sources: LUSA/ SIC
