There are further negotiations to be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, so the unions say they are expecting a new proposal since what the government took to the table was “worse” than the previous ideas, which were too “bitty” and did not “include promises the government had made earlier.

"Pay increases across the board” is the nurses’ main demand, a union spokeswoman, Guadalupe Simões, told Lusa.

Another demand is to see career progressions and a pay supplement for specialised nurses who managed to get the government to agree to a job subsidy last year.

The problem, the union leader said, is that the government now says this subsidy was temporary until the careers are reviewed but it now wants to make it definitive, which is far from giving these specialists what they deserve.