Portuguese nurses want pay not applause
At midnight nurse Ines Lopes and her colleagues are about to start the night shift looking after clients in a COVID-19 intensive care product in the center of Lisbon. Nursing is employment they love nonetheless it hardly pays the bills. Politicians, celebrities and people across Portugal have put in a lot of the coronavirus pandemic praising frontline health workers, in some cases emerging from their homes to clap and cheer on the medics. But that has fuelled frustration among medical researchers struggling to make ends meet because of low salaries and insufficient opportunities to move up the profession ladder, Lopes said.
"They (politicians) say we will be the best on the planet but there are no salary boosts," Lopes, 30, told Reuters in the tiny two-bedroom flat she shares with her sister and a good cat in a good residential area on Lisbon's outskirts."Clapping and thanking us won't fix something," she said, adding various nurses work two careers to provide for their families.
A few hours in the future at the Sao Jose Hospital, one of Lisbon's largest, she joined a rotating team of nurses working non-stop in an extended corridor with rooms full of COVID-19 patients. Although visibly fatigued, they quickly placed on defensive gear and entered rooms to supply medication and clean up patients, almost all of whom were unconscious. "We are overwhelmed, we happen to be in disbelief," Lopes said.
There are practically 45,500 nurses at the national health service (SNS) put into three professional categories. Almost 50 %, including Lopes, make 1,205 euros ($1,465) per month before tax. After tax, some take home less than 980 euros, just 315 euros above the lowest wage, according to the Nurses' Order. Possibly anyone who has worked for just two decades quite often earn the same, the nurses union SEP said.
Lopes graduated from nursing university in 2012 amid a great economical crisis and spent a good year looking for do the job. As Portugal froze nurses' career progression and salaries, a large number of her co-workers went overseas seeking better fork out. Her salary has got remained the same since she began. Now she is bracing for the monetary affect of the pandemic, that was harder to attack because of a shortage of nurses and doctors. "There were many governments but it certainly is a similar thing," Lopes said. "Many people are feeling down."
The Socialist government "unfroze" career progression in the general public sector in 2018, nonetheless it could have a nurse up to decade to get enough awards points for a pay rise under the system. "The federal government must adopt policies to keep nurses below and that cannot happen with low wages," said union representative Guadalupe Simoes. "
Otherwise, Portuguese nurses might continue to try to head to different countries where they are able to earn more."A 2019 OECD report said nurses' give increased in most countries since the financial crisis, nonetheless it fell in nations like Portugal and neighbouring Spain due to public sector pay for cuts, and only began to slowly recover in recent years.
Last year, a complete of 1 1,230 nurses asked the Nurses' Order for the paperwork to be able to work overseas. In January, the federal government approved temporary measures to support the health service, including a 50% bonus on overtime repayment for those on the frontline and provided the SNS the likelihood to hire considerably more nurses and doctors.It announced a 0.3% wage increase for the general public sector in March 2020, which doctors' union SIM referred to as "unworthy".
