The nurses started the action on Monday for an indefinite period, in protest over their salaries and lack of recognition for their work.
They bemoan the fact they are being paid wages equal to common nursing services despite providing specialist care.
Around 2,000 nurses, who provide specialist services, took matters into their own hands after talks with the Health Ministry to have their wages adjusted accordingly soured.
The Ministry has asked the Attorney-General’s Office to issue a formal opinion on the form of protest, which the Government considers illegal.
Health Minister, Adalberto Campos. Fernandes said that the nurses undertaking the protest should face “disciplinary and ethical” action, and slammed the Nurses Board for backing the Ministry “into a corner.”
As a result of the action, birthing wards in hospitals in Aveiro and Guimarães, in northern Portugal, had to be closed down. Elsewhere, other maternity wards remained open but were being staffed by orderlies and doctors. Several, on occasions, ground to a standstill.
At Lisbon’s Amadora-Sintra Hospital, 21 of the 23 nurses who specialise in maternal health and obstetrics refused to perform the service.
Speaking to the media, Ana Rita Cavaco, head of the Nurses’ Board, acknowledged the situation “put the safety of mothers and children at risk”, and stressed that “various health boards have already asked for help because the country cannot continue to ignore that the health sector has serious safety problems.”
“This situation [of the specialist nurses] is an embarrassment for the Ministry of Health, for the Government and even the Prime Minister is silent on it”, she said.
Meanwhile, pharmacists who work for the SNS have also pledged strike action on 18 and 19 July, and later for an undetermined period of time, from 1 August.
Henrique Reguendo, president of the National Pharmacists Union, explained that this is the first strike that the union has decreed in 20 years, and covers all pharmacists working for Public Health Services.
There are currently around 1,000 pharmacists working in the SNS.
Reguendo said the promise of action was brought on by the “unilateral severing of commitments assumed by the Government in pharmaceutical career negotiations.”
“Pharmacists perform a number of key tasks in hospitals and healthcare facilities. Sometimes they are not so visible to the public, but they are involved in everything from the production and distribution [of drugs] and preparation of chemotherapy; key roles without which many patients are not likely to be treated”, he elaborated, adding “a strike by pharmacists is obviously going to complicate the lives of hospitals. In all places where pharmacists are involved, if they stop working, other things do not work.”