Nursing floor: Lula signs project with BRL 7.3 billion – 04/18/2023 – Market

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) signed, this Tuesday (18), the PLN (Bill of the National Congress) to guarantee the funding of the national nursing floor.

The measure aims to open a special credit worth R$ 7.3 billion in favor of the Ministry of Health to guarantee payment to professionals in the sector. The text still needs to be approved by Congress.

The text contemplates the salary floor for nurses, technicians and nursing assistants and midwives.

The government had been charged by the category to implement the measure, which was suspended by an injunction by Minister Luís Roberto Barroso, of the STF (Federal Supreme Court), after the proposal did not foresee a financial impact on the entities of the federation.

The signing took place at a closed event at the Planalto Palace, broadcast on TV Brasil. Nurse and former BBB Cezar Black followed the ceremony behind closed doors.

States and municipalities, in turn, pressured the government against the proposal. The text gained strength in the face of the commitment of the category during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The minimum amount approved by Congress was R$4,750 for nurses, R$3,325 for nursing technicians and R$2,375 for nursing assistants and midwives.

The floor was created after the approval of a PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) by Congress, in July 2022, with the aim of providing legal certainty to a bill that dealt with the same topic.

The original proposal, however, did not foresee the financial impact of the measure for states, municipalities and hospitals. Nor did it state how the cost would be met. Without detailing, Minister Barroso decided, in September, to suspend the national nursing floor law.

The decision was given in action filed by the National Confederation of Health, Hospitals and Establishments and Services. The minister stated that the organization made “plausible allegations” of possible “mass layoffs” with the new rule.

At the end of March, President Lula stated that the federal government intended to subsidize the salary of nursing professionals in Santas Casas so that the national floor for the category could be implemented.

Lula stated that the Minister of the Civil House, Rui Costa (PT), met with Minister Luís Roberto Barroso so that the injunction suspending the application of the floor could be revoked.

Such as Sheet showed, the government inserted in its proposed fiscal framework a list of more than ten items that will be left out of the new spending limit to be created from next year. Among them, transfers to municipalities for the payment of the nursing floor, resources destined to agreements with court orders and contributions to state-owned companies.