FNAM demands to start negotiations urgently

The FNAM congratulates the new Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, hoping that she will have a good mandate and with good results, in defense of the SNS and prioritizing dialogue with doctors. From the FNAM, a request for an urgent meeting was sent to begin this dialogue, which is expected to be more fruitful than the negotiations with the previous Minister.

The FNAM will be an ally of all measures that have the capacity to retain and attract doctors to the SNS, with fair salaries and decent working conditions, in order to reverse the departure of doctors to the private sector and emigration. There is no time to waste and negotiations must begin immediately.

To this end, it is urgent to begin swift and pragmatic negotiations, to avoid the chaos that occurred in 2023, with Emergency Services closing in dominoes from North to South of the country, due to a lack of doctors. Solutions are still needed so that the SNS guarantees family doctors for the entire population, as well as timely consultations and surgeries in the SNS, instead of vouchers for consultations and surgeries in the private sector.

FNAM presents solutions to retain doctors in the SNS, namely the replacement of the 35-hour week and 12 hours of weekly work in the emergency service, the resizing of family doctors’ user lists to 1,500 users and the replacement of the supplement permanently available for public health.

The FNAM proposal also focuses on an Exclusive Dedication regime, optional and duly increased for all SNS doctors, replacing the current Full Dedication regime, implemented by the previous Government, which violates the Constitution and European labor directives.

For the FNAM, it is also essential to reintegrate interns into the medical career, increase the salary of all doctors, without exception, including those with individual employment contracts pre-2013, replace vacation days taken during the troika’s intervention, as well as the review of parental protection measures for doctors.

With seriousness and competence, the new Government and the new Minister of Health are responsible for finally valuing the medical career and recovering the NHS as one of the pillars of our democracy and in accordance with its constitutional precepts: accessible, universal and of quality for the entire population.

Source: FNAM