Despite the national strike ending today, the doctors' protest continues with the strikes of family doctors in overtime until August 22 and the additional production of the National Health Service (SNS) hospitals.

According to the Independent Doctors Union (SIM), which guarantees that adherence in the first two days was around 90% globally, the strike was intended to force the Government to present concrete proposals in the negotiations that have been taking place for over a year when it comes to salaries.

Another round of negotiations is scheduled for Friday, but SIM and the National Federation of Doctors (FNAM) guaranteed last week, that they would only be available to attend the meeting if they received the proposals in advance, which the Minister of Health, Manuel Pizarro, assured would happen.

On Wednesday, SIM delivered a letter to the Prime Minister at the São Bento Palace with a “very strong appeal” for the Government to implement its proposals for the new regime of full dedication, emergency services, organisation and discipline of medical work and the review of salaries, matters that are on the negotiating table between the parties.

“After exceeding the formally established negotiating deadline, the Government declined from presenting concrete negotiating proposals”, the letter also mentions, warning that in Portugal there has been an “erosion of more than 22% of medical salaries over the past 10 years”.

The doctors' protest continues on August 1st and 2nd, with a new national strike called FNAM, the second marked by the union structure in about a month, after the strike that took place on July 5th and 6th.