“We are seeing around 70% participation, with almost 100% in intensive care and inpatient services for pulmonology and medicine 3 at Faro Hospital”, said Alda Pereira, Algarve regional director of the Portuguese Nurses' Union (SEP).

At a press conference held outside Faro Hospital, Alda Pereira told journalists that “the strike is having a major impact” on hospitals and health centres in the region of the National Health Service.

“In the central operating theatre of Faro Hospital, of the 10 nurses who should be working, four are on strike, and at the Southern Rehabilitation Centre there is 100% support”, she explained.

This morning, nurses were present at the door of the Faro hospital unit, where they placed two banners reading “1,000 nurses missing in the Algarve”, painted with hands symbolising the 2,000 nurses missing in the region.

The two-day strike called by the Portuguese Nurses Union at the Algarve ULS, which manages the public hospitals of Faro, Portimão and Lagos and the health centres, began this morning and will run until Friday afternoon.

The strike aims to protest against what the SEP says is “the deterioration of working conditions for nurses in the Algarve, whether in hospital care or in health centres”.

The Algarve nurses are also demanding payment for overtime on public holidays, “with an hourly rate that cannot be paid as if it were normal work”, concluded the SEP union leader.