Lifts at hospital for the elderly out of order

The two main lifts at Zammit Clapp Hospital are not working, and people are having to go up flights of stairs to visit their friends or relatives convalescing there.

Albert Fenech of Bugibba is one of these people. Since his father was admitted to the hospital last Thursday, both lifts have been out of order, he said.

"It is a pitiful sight to see visitors, mostly elderly people, carrying heavy bags and going up flights of stairs to visit their loved ones," Mr Fenech said.

A tender has been issued for the lifts' replacement, and in the meantime temporary repairs should enable continued use of at least one of the hospital lifts, hospital general manager Joseph Micallef told The Times. Mr Micallef said that after many years of good service, the lifts were "giving operational problems".

This was confirmed by Zammit Clapp hospital management committee chairman Fredrick Fenech.

Professor Fenech said a lot of money had been spent to repair the lifts. He explained that the existing lifts were not passenger lifts, but service lifts, and added that the intention was to replace them with passenger lifts.

The hospital management committee, he continued, had asked the government for money to replace the lifts, and once this request was approved, had issued a call for tenders.

Prof. Fenech said that last year the committee had appealed to big companies to help out by donating Lm500. However, he said, the response was not very good, and only one big company and a foreign patient made contributions.

Meanwhile, Mr Micallef said regular maintenance had enabled the continued use of the lifts since the hospital reopened in 1991.

"However, the heavy use over the years has had its toll, and on expert advice the hospital administration is implementing a programme of replacement of one of the main duplex lifts with two passenger lifts. The tender for this has already been issued," he said.

In the meantime, he continued, temporary repairs should enable the continued use of at least one of the lifts. He expressed the hospital's apologies for the inconvenience, and said staff and visitors were being asked to cooperate to reduce the workload on the lifts until the works were completed.

When contacted, Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses president Rudolph Cini said the lifts had not been operating for "a few months". He said that since the two main lifts had not been working, visitors were being allowed to use the service lifts.

But Mr Fenech told The Times that many visitors were having to use the stairs, since even the lift at the day hospital was not working regularly, although the reception was urging people to make use of this.

Mr Fenech described the situation as "disgraceful". He said many people who went to the hospital were themselves not young, and it was therefore difficult for them to go up the stairs.

"My mother is in her 80s and she has to go up 40 stairs to visit her husband," he said.

He also complained about the inability to take his father outside for some fresh air in the hospital grounds since it was impossible to take a wheelchair down.