Draft State Budget ‘one of most important in history of health service’

  • Lusa
  • 27 October 2021

The Health Minister, Marta Temido, stated Wednesday that the proposed Budget is the most important in the history of the National Health Service (SNS),

The Health Minister said Wednesday that the proposed Budget is the most important in the history of the National Health Service (SNS), arguing that the government is “clean faced” and does not want crises or staging.

These positions were communicated by Marta Temido on the morning of the second and last day of the first reading on the State Budget proposal for 2022, in parliament, in a speech that received a standing ovation from the Socialist benches.

In the most political part of her speech, which lasted about ten minutes, she spoke of the measures taken over the last few years regarding the SNS.

“We do not regret the road we have travelled, but there is a long way to go”.

Marta Temido also left political messages to the left in the initial phase of her speech, especially when she referred to “the importance of completing the execution of the principles foreseen in the Basic Health Law”, approved by the left in parliament in the previous legislature.

“I have no doubt that this Budget is one of the most important in the 42-year history of the SNS”.

It “recovers the autonomy of hiring professionals by SNS units” – one of the demands of the parties to the left of the PS in order to end a ten-year old limitation.

It “reinforces respect for careers, through promotion competitions with vacancies for nurses, managers and specialists”.

“It assumes the repositioning of nurses with regard to the relevance of points acquired by performance evaluation at a time prior to the new career, it creates the financial conditions for negotiating the functional content and the remuneration scale for auxiliary health technicians, which is a priority that the Government decided to anticipate,” she pointed out, here in response to another demand of the Left Bloc in the Budget negotiations.

According to the Health Minister, the Budget proposal “creates the conditions to replace the use of temporary work agencies and subcontracting of professionals with an increase in the value of supplementary work by doctors on the staff map”.

“We need to pay our professionals better”, she said, and was applauded by the Socialist benches.

Marta Temido also spoke of full dedication, a regime with which the Government sought to respond to the demands of the Left Bloc on exclusivity in careers, separating the public and private spheres.

The health minister referred to a regime “of progressive application by SNS doctors, on a voluntary basis, with a commitment to care and with increased remuneration for all those who take the option.”

On the financial level, the health minister argued that the SNS has “recovered from cuts since 2016”, especially at the salary level, and highlighted the 35-hour working week as the rule.

“In these years, new careers have been created, the number of workers has increased by 24%, which, in total represent an expenditure of almost five billion euros – expenditure that is growing at 9.5% right now. These are facts that we are proud of and that we built together with the left-wing parties,” she added.