Private health providers hope to negotiate lower nursing wages

The Brazilian Supreme Court on Monday night proclaimed its verdict over the new nursing salary floor — lifting an injunction that had suspended the higher wages for nurses, midwives, and nursing technicians.

In August of last year, Congress established a new minimum wage for nurses of BRL 4,750 (USD 992) a month (nursing technicians and midwives get 70 and 50 percent of that minimum, respectively). But the Supreme Court suspended its implementation amid uncertainty around how public hospitals would pay for the increase in payroll costs.

Now, the public health sector will have to immediately adjust nurses’ wages nationwide to around 30 percent higher than the current average. In contrast, the private sector is expected to sit down with unions to find a middle ground between what the law says and what the sector can actually offer. 

Simply enforcing the nursing wage floor to all private health service providers could have disastrous effects on an industry already battered by high operational costs and regulatory uncertainties. 

Last week, all ten sitting justices agreed that while hospitals and providers linked to the federal government must immediately apply the new nursing salary floor, those attached to states and municipalities will only need to do so up to the limit of the extra budget made available by the federal government. If there is no budgetary supplement for this, local governments are not required to pay nurses the new minimum wage.

As for entities and companies in the private sector, there was no consensus among the justices.

Three justices followed...