The National Federation of Doctors (Fnam) will mark the sector’s grievances today with a protest initiative at the World Health Organization Symposium in Porto.
Between 08:00 and 10:00, the doctors promise a “flashmob” in defense of the “dignity” of the medical career and the future of the National Health Service (SNS).
“We are especially targeting the foreign health ministers present at the event, but also the Portuguese government and the Minister of Health, Dr. Manuel Pizarro, to send out a warning cry to abandon their stubbornness and have the courage to incorporate the doctors’ proposals into the SNS, so that all citizens in Portugal can have access to a public, universal, quality health service with a future,” the federation said in a statement.
The demonstrators also sent a letter to the World Health Organization (WHO), asking it, in its forthcoming reflections on “the future of health systems in the digital age”, not to forget, “as it did this time”, the digital challenge for public health systems.
The action at the WHO Symposium is the first stage of the “FNAM TOUR”, which will tour various health units in Portugal, with the aim of reinforcing the mobilization of doctors to submit declarations of unwillingness to work overtime beyond the mandatory 150 hours per year, and to map the “dramatic situation” in the various health units.
The tour of the country will end in Lisbon on November 14 with a national demonstration in front of the Ministry of Health, along with a two-day national strike scheduled for November 14 and 15.
NHS pharmacists are also fighting for better pay and career progression, among other demands, and are on strike today in the districts of Beja, Évora, Faro, Lisbon, Portalegre, Santarém and Setúbal and in the autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira.
