The Union of Pre-Hospital Emergency Technicians (STEPH), the Ministry of Health and INEM will meet on Friday to try to reach an agreement that would cancel the strike scheduled for the 14th and 28th of September. The meeting, which will take place at the Ministry of Health in Lisbon at 08:30, is the second meeting within the framework of negotiations on the reorganization of INEM's emergency resources, whose board of directors is chaired by Luís Cabral.
On August 13th, STEPH announced the decision to proceed with a strike against the resource reorganization measures, in a process that has led to extreme positions between the two parties. Among the demands are opposition to the transformation of advanced life support ambulances into light vehicles and the request that INEM expand the emergency ambulance network until the end of 2027. The union has already sent a counter-proposal to INEM, which includes some concessions regarding the initial demands.
The president of STEPH, Rui Lázaro, stated that expectations for the meeting are "very good," but criticized what he called the "stubbornness" of the INEM president, considering that the proposal sent by the organization fell "short of the demands" and "of the very bridges" established at the first meeting on August 26th.
STEPH also accused INEM of violating the right to strike, arguing that the replacement of pre-hospital emergency technicians by nurses in the triage of calls forwarded by SNS 24 was done after the strike was announced. Luís Cabral rejected the criticism, emphasizing that triage by nurses was already planned and that their training had been carried out in recent months.
