It’s the latest nurses’ strike aimed at receiving better pay and conditions, and in just two days it has managed to scupper almost 800 planned operations.
‘Greve Cirúrgica’ is aimed at ‘non-urgent’ surgeries, many of which will have been scheduled many months in advance.
Strike action is taking place in five hospital centres in Porto, Coimbra, Lisbon and Setúbal.
The syndicate of Portuguese nurses says the situation is “now in the hands of the government”.
Either a deal can be reached, or the strike will continue until December 31 – by which time impacts could be “very serious for the health of Portuguese citizens”, warns Correio da Manhã.
State hospitals are currently trying to schedule surgeries within six months of them becoming necessary.
In the Algarve, patients are being told that they can opt for a voucher to get their surgery done privately if the State cannot make the six-month deadline.
But, says CM, this is not an option open to many patients from other areas.
Reporting on the developing drama today (which saw around 300 operations cancelled), Público stresses this is a form of strike ‘never before undertaken’.
It essentially leaves everyone waiting for an operation, bar cancer patients and the most urgent cases, left hanging, possibly even going to the back of the queue.
If the government’s ‘strong-arm tactics’ don’t give, thousands of people could be affected, says Público, explaining that nurses taking part in the strike are being ‘compensated’ by any pay that may be docked from a 360,000 euro fund that has been amassed by the movement that it.
Nurses are furious that salaries have been frozen for 13 years – despite government assurances to the contrary – and they are demanding back-payment for hours of unrewarded overtime.
This is the first major fight for new minister of health, Marta Temido – a ‘specialist in hospital administration’ who was given the job in a government shake-up last month but has no previous political experience.
This far, Temido has publicly decried ‘greve cirúrgica’ for being “extraordinarily aggressive”.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
