Nursing Councils issue a letter to the STF in favor of the applicability of the category floor

Manaus (AM) – During the 554th edition of the Ordinary Plenary Meeting of the Federal Council of Nursing, which has been taking place in Manaus since Monday (19), the presidents of the Regional Councils present at the event, met to align strategies to mobilize the category and sensitize the ministers of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), who still have yet to vote on the opinion of minister Barroso, releasing the payment of the minimum wage for nursing.

Minister Dias Toffoli returned, last Tuesday (20), the records of the Nursing salary floor process, after a request for views, and the trial will resume this Friday (23).

Actions are necessary for nursing to be able to sensitize ministers and obtain the majority of votes in favor of paying the minimum wage. Among the actions outlined, the Presidents of the Regional Nursing Councils and the Federal Councilors of Cofen wrote a letter addressed to the Ministers of the STF to sensitize them.

“It is very important that nursing remains firm and mobilized. We know that all this unfolding is tiring, but we need to be attentive and confident. The Cofen System/Regional Councils is committed to making all the mobilizations and articulations necessary for ministers to vote in favor of complying with the floor. There is nothing more to question, the worst is the Law, it is constitutional, has resources and must be complied with”,

explained the president of Coren-AM, Sandro André.

Read the letter to the STF ministers in full.

Letter to the ministers of the Federal Supreme Court

Nursing floor: essential for the health of Brazilian society

_“I think feelings are lost

in the words. All should be transformed

in actions, in actions that bring results”,

Florence Nightingale, precursor of modern nursing._

Nursing in Brazil respectfully addresses the Honorable Ministers and Ministers of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), in one of the most important courts in the history of the category, based on economic, social and scientific data, to earnestly ask them to vote for constitutionality and immediate applicability of the National Nursing Floor, in the records of ADI 7,222, as regulated by Constitutional Amendments 124 and 127/2022, Law 14,434/2022 and Law 14,581/2023.

All legal requirements have been met to enforce the law. Based on the aforementioned legislation, the Ministry of Health has already published Ordinance 597/2023, regulating and specifying the transfer of resources in the order of R$ 7.3 billion so that states, municipalities and private sector entities – which serve at least 60% of patients from the Unified Health System (SUS) – meet the Nursing floor starting in 2023. Likewise, the transfer of R$ 2 billion was ensured for Santas Casas to meet the floor.

The distribution of resources is based on official data and is sufficient to put the Nursing floor in place. In the same sense, it was proven during the legislative process and in the records of ADI 7,222 that the private sector has full economic conditions to comply with the law.

It is necessary to say that the right to the floor was won with broad popular support and approved by the National Congress, in successive votes, with at least 97% of parliamentary support in all opportunities. Likewise, the matters were sanctioned on all necessary occasions by two Presidents of the Republic, from completely different political spectrums. after Nursing’s work became notoriously known, because of the public health emergency resulting from the pandemic. Notably, a kind of unanimity was created in politics and society around wage justice for the entire category.

Like Brazilian society, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) unanimously recommend improving the working conditions of Nursing professionals, to guarantee the country’s health and development services. According to these organizations, investing in nursing and midwifery professionals will not only allow advances in the field of health, but will also contribute to promoting gender equality and ensuring decent work and economic growth.

These are difficult times for Nursing. The daily challenge of caring for people has been crushing and unbearable in the face of miserable salaries, exhausting hours, unworthy rest, prejudice, moral and sexual harassment, precarious transportation, insecurity, violence and overload with home and family responsibilities.

Nursing accounts for approximately 59% of the healthcare workforce. In Brazil, there are more than 2.8 million professionals in the category, responsible for caring, observing, performing the treatment, comforting pain and supporting human beings in their most genuine needs.

Nursing is the only health category that works more than 44 hours a week. Double employment is also a reality imposed by low wages on professionals in the area, who, buffeted by miserable wages, end up having to double shifts, accumulate more than one job or do “odd jobs”.

The salary reality of the category is appalling. According to the Study Profile of Nursing in Brazil (FIOCRUZ, 2015), 1.8% of the category earns less than one minimum wage per month. In the same period, in the public sector, 14.4% earned up to R$ 1,000.00 per month and 45% earned a maximum of R$ 2,000. In the private sector, 23.1% received only R$1,000 and 31.9% did not exceed R$2,000 a month. Since 2015, wages have not had a real increase and Nursing professionals have lost even more in the face of the economic crisis and inflationary pressure.

Approximately 50% of the nursing workforce was on the front lines of the fight against covid-19. The category diagnosed and cared for approximately 34 million people, applying more than 700 million vaccine doses. However, in a sad contrast, Brazil was the country that recorded the highest mortality rate among Nursing professionals in the world during the pandemic. Therefore, it is also for the dignity of those who have passed away, their families and those who are still on the front line that we defend the implementation of the floor.

While millions of health professionals receive the minimum wage for exhausting hours, in unhealthy conditions, owners of hospital conglomerates and owners of health plans are getting richer and becoming billionaires, in a country increasingly sedimented by inequality and inhumanity. . Thus, once again it is necessary to go to the judiciary to reaffirm the essence of professionals who, even in the face of the greatest threats, such as the pandemic, remain firm in their work, doing everything they can for the lives of patients.

Those who today advocate against the national nursing floor should be the first to be in favor of it, as they are major beneficiaries of the category’s work. However, they prefer to act as intransigent defenders of unsustainable inequalities. Just yesterday, frontline professionals were called heroes. Today, they deny even the basics.

It is time to do justice. According to Item V, Art. 7 of the Federal Constitution, the worker is entitled to a “wage floor proportional to the length and complexity of the work”. We are not asking for anything too much, just that the Citizen Constitution be complied with.

For all the arguments exposed, we believe that the implementation of the nursing floor will allow the eradication of historically miserable salaries in the category and establish dignified living conditions and decent work for the largest contingent of health professionals in the country.

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