With the syndicates behind it already reporting that the 24-hour strike in the Algarve’s state health sector is affecting emergency services, outpatient consultations and the operation of the operating room at Faro hospital, everyone else is simply praying for a quiet day where as few people as possible are put at risk.
Hospital boss Tiago Botelho has already described his “profound incomprehension” at the justifications for this strike, in the middle of the busiest time of the year when the Algarve is absolutely full of people, nationals and international visitors – saying the motivations appear to be entirely political, with all syndicates involved “gravitating in the sphere of the Communist Party”.
Mr Botelho, the president of the administrative council of the Algarve ULS (local health unit), adds that the syndicates’ complaints over a lack of dialogue are also utterly spurious. This always has been a strike timed specifically to cause maximum impact.
In that regard, Alda Pereira, representative of SEP (Portuguese nurses union), has already reported ‘strike participation’ at “around 80%”, with 100% logged when it comes to surgeries in Faro. All scheduled surgeries have been cancelled, she told Lusa. Only oncological surgeries are being performed.
Rosa Franco, from the Union of Public Servants of the South and Autonomous Regions, reports that “many services are affected,” although minimum services are guaranteed, as required by law.
“The services that are affected and experiencing strong adherence are the Emergency Department (A&E), which is chaotic; outpatient consultations, which have many counters closed and no appointments (being attended), Radiology, the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) and the UCA (Outpatient Surgery Unit),” where surgeries are being cancelled, she said.
Just that sentence implies thousands of normal people who need help facing almost insurmountable difficulties.
André Gomes, from the South Zone Doctors’ Union (SMZS-FNAM), said he had not yet received data on doctors’ participation in the strike – ‘postponing the provision of information until the end of the morning. When this came through it appears doctors are only partially supporting the strike, (with 60% adherence).
The strike, scheduled to run until midnight, covers all health professionals working in the SNS state health service in the Algarve who are demanding, “among other demands, the hiring of more staff to stop the burnout they say they are being subjected to”, recalls Lusa.
Source material: LUSA
