Doctors began 48-hour strike today Portugaldemanding salary increases and better working conditions.
According to the National Federation of Doctors (Fnam), which has around 31 thousand doctors registered in the Unified Health System, the turn out the strike lasted until noon today in about 70%.
“It is a very large turnout which shows the excitement felt by doctors,” said the president of Fnam, Juana Bordalo e Sá, to the Portuguese news agency Lusa.
Security personnel are assigned to public hospitals to receive and deal with emergencies.
“No” to postponing negotiations until 2025
Strikers refuse to postpone wage renegotiation until 2025, as proposed by the government, and demand better working conditions prevent the flight of doctors from the public sector to the private sectorincreasing the workload of doctors who remain in the already understaffed public sector.
Requests from public servants
Since coming to power following early legislative elections last March, the new moderate-right minority government has had to respond to demands from various categories of civil servants.
The government led by Prime Minister Luiz Montenegro reached agreements with teachers, civil servants and then the police, but must now negotiate with the medical and nursing sectors and also the armed forces.
Rail workers are also mobilizing to demand wage increases and are planning another strike on Wednesday, following on from the work stoppages they have already carried out.
After the end of the socialist governments that were in power for eight years, and with a far-right on the rise, the current government does not have an absolute majority in Parliament.
Therefore, the current government is not sure it will be able to approve the state budget for 2025 in the autumnbut observers and analysts agree that neither the government nor the opposition currently has any interest in triggering new elections.
Sources: AMPE, AFP