After the Kristin depression passed, there were health centers in Leiria that had to close, not only due to material damage, lack of energy and water, but also due to the lack of professionals, who also had their homes destroyed, who had to stay with their children at home, because they had no other alternative, the schools closed, or because they simply could not get through to get to their place of work along the closed roads. It was like this in Leiria as in other places in the central and western regions.
But, at the end of the afternoon of Tuesday, the 3rd, the professionals at the Local Health Unit of the Leiria Region (ULSRL), which includes the Santo André Hospital and health centers in the municipalities of Leiria, Marinha Grande, Porto de Mós, Pombal and Alcobaça, learned, through an informative circular from the Board of Directors, that absences would have to be justified, having to use vacation days or hours from the compensation allowance to avoid loss of salary.
According to the DN, workers have expressed themselves “outraged” and “mistreated” by this solution, as they consider that “the state of calamity” decreed by the Government should serve as justification without loss of pay. The vice-president of SMZC, Rafael Henriques, confirmed the feeling of “indignation” in the health units, reinforcing that “if many professionals had to be absent in the first few days it was because their homes were destroyed or they had no way of getting to the workplace”. Rafael Henriques also told DN that the union’s management will analyze the circular and only then take a position, but we will try to “find a way to resolve the situation without penalizing the workers”.
ULS says no worker will be harmed
DN contacted ULS in the Leiria Region in the late afternoon of this Wednesday, February 4th, which confirmed “the sending of the information circular to ULS professionals in the Leiria Region” and that the objective was to “point out a legal framework for absences caused by the impact of storm Kristin”, highlighting that “no professional will be harmed by absences resulting from a proven impossibility of traveling to the workplace”.
In the DN response, the ULS of the Leiria Region states that “the circular exclusively reflects the applicable legal regime, clarifying that the state of calamity does not, in itself, produce automatic labor effects”.
And that, in this sense, “service directors and direct managers will analyze each situation case by case, taking into account the individual reality of each professional, ensuring a fair, proportional and humanized application of the law”.
In the end, it states that the “Board of Directors reiterates its commitment to protecting the rights of professionals and to the responsible and transparent management of the exceptional situations experienced during this meteorological event.”
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