Nurses set November strike date

With the Council of Ministers today emphasising the reforms ‘approved’ for reorganisation of Portugal’s State health service, the country’s syndicate of nurses has scheduled a new strike – for Monday November 20 – due to their deep reservations over some of the key areas of policy: the reorganisation of USFs (family health units). Like doctors so concerned with the policy for Local health units (USLs), the nurses say the new USF law is “doomed to failure”. In fact it is not so much a reform, as a patch – a mishmash make-do plan that goes not value nurses or dignify the profession.