The government’s proposal for emergency teams is an agenda for unworthy work, union says – Health

The National Federation of Physicians (FNAM) this Sunday rejected the government’s proposal for dedicated emergency teams, claiming it was “a real agenda for undue work” without provision for a salary increase.

“The federation rejects the Ministry of Health’s proposal to apply inhumane working hours for doctors in dedicated teams in the emergency services, with shifts of 12 hours a day, without a limit to overtime or an increase in salary,” the trade union body said in a statement.

On March 23, the Minister of Health, Manuel Pizarro, advocated the creation of dedicated teams for the larger emergency services, with due pay.

“We need, at least in the most urgent emergencies, to have dedicated teams, who are appropriately rewarded from a rewards point of view and have a forward-looking perspective on their lives,” the official said at the conclusion of the first edition of the report. SNS Summit, held at the Hospital de Santa Maria in Lisbon.

According to the National Dental Federation, the proposal put forward by the ministry seems to be going “in the opposite direction of what is supposed” with regard to working conditions, labor rights, and reconciling the professional, personal and family life of doctors.

The federation added that the government presented “a real agenda of unworthy work and devaluation of doctors, which distorted the negotiations with the unions,” which lasted for several months and which are supposed to end in June as expected in the negotiation protocol. .

According to the National Emergency Service Federation, the government’s “work cycles in the emergency service” proposal stipulates that doctors work 12 hours a day, exclusively in the emergency service, in intensive and intermediate care units, for consecutive periods of up to 90 days. to nine months a year.

Altogether, doctors would work 36 hours a week, concentrating workdays into three days, in a real promotion of overwork and ‘burnout’, criticized the structure led by Joanna Bordallo e SA.

For FNAM, this is an “inhumane proposal” that also does not foresee a limit on overtime or night work, nor does it guarantee that the weekly rest can also take place on weekends, which, at a maximum, could lead to the doctor working on Saturdays and Sunday during the nine months.

The union structure also laments that the Ministry of Health “doesn’t provide any compensation”, and intends to compensate one vacation day for every 90 days doctors worked in the previous year on dedicated emergency teams.

Faced with this controversy, FNAM has submitted a counter-proposal and is now awaiting a response from the Ministry of Health.

“If the Minister of Health, Manuel Pizarro, insists on this harmful proposal for doctors and patients, he will not have overtime after the mandatory 150 hours per year, which a large number of doctors have already exceeded,” the union also guaranteed the building.

In early March, FNAM called a two-day strike to demand an assessment of the medical profession and salary scales, despite ongoing negotiations between the two parties, but still no agreement after several meetings.

This stop was not supported by the Independent Doctors Syndicate, which withdrew from the protest, claiming that this form of struggle was not justified while negotiations with the government were ongoing.

After the last meeting with the ministry, the authority said in a statement, “The list of emergency teams allocated and the periods allocated for emergency service have been accepted with the due compensation.”