Project unlocks money left over in funds to combat covid-19; idea is to enable the nursing floor
The Rapporteur-General for the 2023 Budget, Senator Marcelo Castro (MDB-PI), said this Tuesday (September 20, 2022) that the Senate will approve the PLP (Complementary Bill) 44 of 2022 before the 1st round of elections, probably in session next week. The proposal unlocks resources stopped in the health funds of states and municipalities.
The idea is to use it to pay part of the nursing salary floor. According to the emedebista, the approval of the project would immediately release the reallocation of R$ 7 billion in the mayors and governors’ treasury.
The text allows redirecting resources originally received by the entities to combat the covid-19 pandemic. The Senate also analyzes other proposals to enable the nurses’ floor. According to Castro, it should only be approved before the October 2 elections.
In an interview with journalists, Castro once again defended breaking the spending ceiling to maintain the extra R$ 200 in 2023, necessary for the R$ 600 Auxílio Brasil, and guarantee the minimum wage for nursing. This time, he also spoke of the possibility of exempting the money for the Popular Pharmacy and school lunch programs from expenditure control.
“Let’s wait for the election to see how they want to deal with this matter. I just raised an issue and said, ‘There’s only one way to fulfill this commitment, and that’s through the roof’”, declared.
Castro met this Tuesday at Palácio do Planalto with the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG) -who is the interim president while Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the vice president Hamilton Mourão (Republicans) and the Speaker of the House, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), are outside the country.
The focus of the meeting was to discuss solutions to enable the establishment of the nursing salary floor. The Federal Supreme Court (STF) temporarily suspended the floor law based on an action by an association of private hospitals.
Another possibility that the budget rapporteur raised in the conversation with Pacheco was to end the ban on mayors using money from congressional amendments to pay public servants.
The MDB senator also praised an idea he attributed to the vice-presidential candidate Geraldo Alckmin (PSB), running mate of the former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (PT), to create a secretariat under the Ministry of Health dedicated exclusively to financing the Santas Casas de Misericórdia and other philanthropic hospitals.
“It’s a good idea, because you would have a working group to really see where the funding problem is catching up. Imagine Brazil without the Santas Casas, what would public health look like? It is a problem that has been going on for decades and needs a solution.”said.
floor history
The president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) sanctioned the nursing salary floor on August 4th. But, by 7 votes to 4, the STF maintained the suspension of the proposal. The vote confirmed an individual decision by Minister Roberto Barroso, who had ordered the suspension on September 4.
The minister gave 60 days for the federal government, the States, the Federal District and the sector’s entities to report on the financial impact of the nursing salary floor, if the implementation involves risks of layoffs and if it can affect the quality of services provided.
The sanctioned law establishes that nurses hired by the public and private sectors under the rules of the CLT (Consolidation of Labor Laws) must earn at least R$4,750. Nursing technicians will earn at least 70% of the value defined for the floor (R$ 3,325) and nursing assistants and midwives, 50% (R$ 2,375).
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