The last day of the year has seen the National Syndicate of Workers in Services and Public Entities deliver notice of an open-ended strike of all health workers for 2026, starting tomorrow (Thursday, January 1).
The strike notice covers every type of health worker “regardless of their employment status, career or union membership (including doctors, nurses, senior diagnostic and therapeutic technicians, Healthcare Assistants, Operational Assistants and other professionals in the sector) throughout 2026 (from January 1 to December 31)” and will instantly affect overtime and additional surgeries under the SIGIC-Integrated Management System for Surgery Registrants.
In a statement, the union’s coordinating secretary, António Moreira, explains that the strike action seeks to force the government to “comply with demands that have been ignored for too long”.
These demands include the “reinstatement of SIADAP (Integrated System for Management and Performance Assessment in Public Administration) points deducted from workers as length of service for pay progression, the regularisation of performance assessments (SIADAP 3), the recognition of the career of Health Care Assistant as a high-stress profession, the hiring of staff, putting an end to the abusive use of extra shifts and 16-hour consecutive working days, and the application of the risk allowance to the careers of Health Care Assistant and Nursing.”
As Moreira explains: “The SNS (state health service) lives in silent collapse. Its professionals are exhausted; exploited and their jobs lack ‘attraction’. We are delivering this strike notice for the whole year of 2026, which means that any day could become a day of paralysis if the government continues to ignore those who provide healthcare to the Portuguese population.”
He adds that minimum services will be ensured in services that operate continuously 24 hours a day, seven days a week – but that such services will be primarily ensured by workers “who do not intend to exercise their legitimate right to strike”.
Source: SIC Notícias
