The Independent Doctors Union (SIM) announced this Friday that the protocol to start negotiations with the Government will be signed in Mayhoping that a calendar for improving working conditions for doctors will be finalized this year.
At the end of the first meeting with the Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, at the Ministry of Health, in Lisbon, the secretary general of SIM, Nuno Rodrigues, said that he requested that the negotiation protocol be concluded by the end of the year.
“This was the first presentation meeting of the Minister of Health and we at least managed to actually implement the scheduling for next month to formalize the negotiating protocol”, which it must be translated “into expectations, it must be transparent and it must bring peace of mind” to doctorsso they know what they can count on in the coming years.
At the meeting, SIM delivered its statement of demands and proposals for “increasing the accessibility of Portuguese people to health, both in primary health care and in hospitals”, and so that the private and social sector can also help in the NHS.
Asked about the minister’s position regarding the SIM proposal for a salary increase of 15% to complete the 15% agreed with the previous Governmentthe union leader stated that the government official said “what she has said publicly”: “They are going to evaluate the State’s financial capacity to respond to this issue and we had also said that we accepted that it would be something phased in time”.
Still asked if he felt openness on the part of the minister to the demands, he stated yes. “Certainly, the Minister of Health never spoke, in fact, throughout the meeting, she was a person of dialogue and a desire to resolve problems.”
Regarding the possibility of going on strike if the demands are not met, Nuno Rodrigues stated that they are not thinking about it “for now”.
“Having yesterday [quinta-feira] was the 25th of April, fortunately we have this freedom of power to contest and to be able to toughen up the forms of struggle, but we are not thinking about that for now. The Independent Doctors’ Union is a credible, serious union, a union that has already signed 38 agreements with the most diverse governments, with private entities and the social sector, and, therefore, we will always negotiate until the 25th hour in order to ensure a good agreement”, he maintained.
More than 50% of doctors are in the first career category
As for a joint negotiation with the National Federation of Doctors (Fnam)said that it was not a topic discussed at the meeting, but stated that SIM has “no problem negotiating together” or separately.
Before entering the meeting, Nuno Rodrigues said that he would bring to the negotiation table the demand to “guarantee that the interim agreement that was reached with the previous government is now implemented by this new Government”, because more than 50% of doctors are in the first career category.
“We have doctors who have never been evaluated on their performance and, therefore, there are a set of issues that, regardless of who is governing, are pending and, therefore, our expectation is that now with this new Ministry of Health and the new minister common points can be reached so that we can make the SNS more competitive and more efficient”, he stressed.
“Therefore, it is essential that this topic is resumed and that negotiations reach a successful conclusion”, concluded the new SIM leader.
