Doctors’ strike affects scheduled activity in hospitals and health centers

The president of the National Federation of Doctors (FNAM) said this Friday that the strike of these professionals is affecting all scheduled activity in hospitals and health centers, blaming the Government, which has been “totally intransigent” in the negotiations.

Next to the Hospital de São João, in Porto, Joana Bordalo e Sá sent figures relating to adherence to this strike, which coincides with the general strike in the Civil Service, at the end of the morning, but added that the effects of the protest will be felt most in consultations and operating rooms, in terms of scheduled surgeries.

He guaranteed, however, that the minimum services will be “scrupulously complied with”.

Speaking to journalists, the FNAM leader insisted on the resignation of the Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, accusing the Government of Luís Montenegro of “doing nothing to be different”.

“We are witnessing the destruction of the National Health Service”, because “there is no investment in its human resources, whether from doctors who still belong to the SNS, but also from younger doctors that we are training and who are unable to have a perspective on the future”, he highlighted.

And he added: “There is no prospect of valuing our career and that is why we are going on strike today. It is not only to value our career, but above all in defense of public service, of our NHS.”

Joana Bordalo e Sá pointed out what has been happening in obstetrics, with births on the streets and in ambulances, which have demonstrated “the destabilization within the National Health Service, which will worsen with the execution of Minister Ana Paula Martins’ plan to create regional emergency services”.

“A regional emergency service is different from a metropolitan emergency service. We are here in Porto and the metropolitan emergency service is carried out between hospitals that are just a few kilometers away from each other. A regional emergency service is not how it works”, he maintained.

In her opinion, the Minister of Health wants to “force doctors to be mobilized in a forced way to carry out these emergency services, which is something that is not even possible for doctors who are covered by collective agreements of the National Federation of Doctors, because they cannot be relocated to do work outside the municipality where they work”.

“This measure of forced mobilization of doctors does not serve the doctors, but, above all, it does not serve the population”, he stressed.

The Government of Luís Montenegro “is telling the population, with regard to the regional urgency of obstetrics, that they will be left without local services. In other words, pregnant women and babies will have to continue walking kilometers and kilometers and kilometers to be seen”.

He cited, as an example, what is happening on the Setúbal peninsula, which “serves almost a million people. When the obstetric emergency services in Barreiro and Setúbal close, pregnant women and babies will have to walk dozens, if not hundreds of kilometers, to have their babies in Almada, and even the emergency service in Almada itself cannot guarantee a service open 24 hours a day.”

“Often, pregnant women, babies, even have to be sent to Lisbon. And, therefore, this is another measure that shows the disinvestment in the National Health Service and that is why we are also here today”, he said.

Joana Bordalo e Sá told journalists that an online negotiation meeting is scheduled between FNAM and the Ministry of Health, early this afternoon, to “probably present the final version of this diploma for regional emergencies and, also, the diploma for high-performance centers in the area of ​​obstetrics gynecology”, of which the director said she still only knew “some excerpts and where this forced mobility is in fact evident”.

“We still don’t have any meeting scheduled to negotiate working conditions through the review of our collective work agreements. We have already submitted these review proposals, but they intransigently do not want to negotiate with doctors, it has already been realized that this is the path”, he added.

Therefore, he considered, “there is no dialogue. This Minister of Health is not talking to the doctors. On the contrary, she wants to impose a solution that will not serve either the doctors or the population. And, as far as doctors are concerned, what will probably happen is that even more doctors will leave the NHS”.

Regarding the meeting scheduled for 3:15 pm today, the FNAM leader said she expected “the same attitude of imposition and not of true dialogue, of serious negotiation and with measures that actually serve doctors, but that serve the (…) population”.

“Obviously, the National Federation of Doctors keeps the solutions on the table, it is available to dialogue and so that our solutions can, in fact, make a difference, so that there is no lack of services for pregnant women, babies, children, the elderly, the entire population, because our National Health Service must be close to the population, it must be public, accessible, universal and is one of the guarantors of our democracy”, he stated.

For this reason “we continue to say that Luís Montenegro must, without a doubt, replace the leadership of the Ministry of Health”, he said.

The National Federation of Doctors has already asked for the resignation of minister Ana Paula Martins, in the summer of 2024, and maintains the same position, “because, in fact, what is happening is an SNS adrift, an INEM that continues to adrift, all health is heading towards degradation”, at the same time that we see “the private sector investing millions and millions. In fact, they have already invested a billion euros, because they also know that the Government by Luís Montenegro will give them feedback”, added Joana Bordalo e Sá.