Enfermagem Portuguesa na Public Radio International, BBC, Boston, USA

Na sequência dos últimos acontecimentos económicos em Portugal uma Rádio americana a "Public Radio International", ligada à BBC, Boston, USA, interessou-se pela situação da Enfermagem Portuguesa e solicitou uma entrevista com um enfermeiro para o seu programa "The World". Deixo aqui o link para o site da rádio onde se pode ouvir a peça http://www.theworld.org/?s=portugal bem como o texto que serviu de base à entrevista.

Interview for Gerry Hadden, "The World, Public Radio International", BBC, Boston, USA

12/02/2010

In Portugal we have a Public Health System since the early eighties just like President Obama is doing in the United States nowadays and to which politics we express our solidarity. We believe that a Public Health System is the best way to assure that the most people have access to health care. There are two arguments that justify this: the human rights and the implications on the economy of a more healthy population. And nurses play a very important role in the health system.

For years the Portuguese nurses have strived for more qualifications, to be more competent through more education, more responsibility and more commitment. We’ve always assumed that more qualified nurses meant better cared citizens.

Before 1998 Portuguese nurses were bachelors: it took us three years to complete the course. Since then every new nurse has an academic degree similar too a teacher, an engineer, a medical doctor, an architect, I believe the word in English is a degree or graduation. It now takes us four years to complete the course. The problem is that there was never an update of our income according to the new degree. Nowadays, about 90% of Portuguese nurses have this degree.

In comparison to other health professions we are the one less paid. We start our career earning 1020 € (approximately the same in US dollars), which is the payment of the bachelor degree. There is no health profession that is paid less than 1500 €. That is what we strive for: the raise of 500 €. We believe our demand is no corporative fantasy; it’s only a fair demand. We want to be treated as equal as the other professions. When negotiations started the government even proposed a decrease of our income to 950 €: it was an outrage that led to a three days strike of about 85% adherence of Portuguese nurses (government statistics) and a street demonstration of 20 000 nurses in front of the health and finance government departments.

Another problem is the specializations in nursing. The government insists in not raising the salary of the nurses that are now specialists. Which is a raise of about 400 €.

I’ve always liked mental health and psychiatry the most out of all the other areas. So I’ve decided to increase my knowledge and my qualifications in this area. So I applied for and completed a course of post graduation of specialization on mental health and psychiatry nursing in March 2009 which cost me 5 000 € and still my income is the same. According to my ethics code I’m obliged to exercise my specialization: I cannot have more knowledge that can improve the citizens’ health without putting it to practice.

So I don’t earn as a graduated nurse, less 500 €, and I don’t earn as mental health nurse which is more 400 €. In my case I should earn more 900 €. If justice was made I would double my salary.

Another serious problem is the precarious contracts of nurses. We believe that only stable contracts promote the quality in health care. My specialization took me one and a half years but my contracts, at that time, were only for three months. So, if I wasn’t contracted for the next three months all of the effort would have been in vain and the population would have lacked one more specialized nurse in psychiatry. Nowadays the situation is even worse because according to the World Health Organization Portugal lacks about 20 000 nurses. We have several thousands of nurses unemployed and the government insists in not contracting them. So the hospitals and other institutions are forced to use outsourcing and temporary agency nurses. In the end it’s the population that suffers the consequences of these policies and in a few years Portuguese health indicators will decrease dramatically.