The Algarve’s health authority (ARS Algarve) hired 10 new nurses for local health centres in the western and eastern Algarve.
The contracts were signed this week, and will see the nurses starting work on Wednesday, July 1, for an “undetermined period of time”.
It is a small step towards reinforcing staff levels but nonetheless a positive move before the busy summer season gets into swing.
Last year, more than 80% of the Algarve’s nurses took part in a 24-hour strike in August to protest against what they claimed was a “lack of health professionals and medical supplies” at the region’s hospitals and health centres.
In March this year, the national nurses’ union (SEP) complained that the Algarve was in need of at least “another 107 nurses” – but the “climate of unrest” that marked 2014 is no longer in evidence.
