Excess of nursing graduates?

About ten years ago hospitals were facing such a nursing shortage that Government was contemplating recruiting nurses from abroad, including faraway countries like the Philippines. It is well known that San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, which was the "mentor" for Mater Dei Hospital, at least in its conception, did just that.

The Malta government was however wiser and through its tertiary education arm, the University of Malta, initiated a new institute built on the foundations physically and mentally of the Nursing School namely the Institute of Health Care (IHC). Not only, but the government also started a Pre-Vocational School to prepare students to join the IHC. This was very successful and we are today witnessing the great success of the IHC in the present nursing saga.

The government said it has decided to employ nurses in the public sector depending on exigencies rather than according to the number of graduates. It is said that the Health Division was conducting a detailed exercise to identify the sectors where the nurses were needed and then it would employ accordingly.

Why was this exercise not carried out in time so that one could know how many nurses are required when they graduate? Some say that the real reason is that there were no funds to employ the nurses in the Department of Health's budget and all concerned are making great efforts to find money to employ these much needed new nursing graduates.

The Director-General of Health has probably tried to be diplomatic in this situation, typical of the civil servant, even if this means that he was putting his head on the block. Although the Health Division has to mantain a sustainable health service and that nursing is far from being the only problem, one would have expected it to establish the needs of the division as far as health professionals are concerned as early as possible.

One other problem facing the Director-General is lack of hospital equipment. This is making the teaching of tasks to students in health care difficult. One sometimes has to point out to students that the right way to perform duties properly is precisely not to do what is being done in practice in the wards.

The equipment problem can be solved by quickly diverting some of the equipment meant to be shipped to Mater Dei Hospital straight to St Luke's and then transfer it to Mater Dei when the hospital is ready for use, as Arnold Cassola has suggested in an article in The Sunday Times last week in relation to the old beds situation. At least in this way, when Mater Dei Hospital opens, it will have properly trained staff carrying out the correct procedures trained on the proper equipment.

As far as recruitment of health professionals is concerned, it is only fair to tell students joining the University what chances they have of getting a job when they graduate. Can the ETC perhaps help in this by forecasting, after consulting the relevant department, the needs of the public service as far as health professionals are concerned for the next five years?

Students joining health care courses may have been misled that there was a great need for all health care professionals. Students are being now misled by being encouraged to join the pharmacy course telling them there are many vacancies in the pharmaceutical industry when about 30 pharmacists are looking for a job and next July another 55 are expected to graduate. When they went to enquire for jobs with the industry at the ETC they were told that they ought to be flexible and consider other options in life such as working as dancers.

It is essential that all of us start planning early enough. Such a plan, identifying the needs for health professionals in the different areas for the coming five years, would avoid ill feelings among new graduates.

Messages indicating a high probability of unemployment after following a course at the University may scare students from following tertiary education more than a cut in the stipend. However, after the nursing saga one has to advise students to read the writing on the wall, if they want to be employed in Malta immediately after they graduate.

And what goes for nursing also goes for teachers, lawyers, architects, pharmacists and other professions where entry to university is not restricted through a numerus clausus. It is said that a numerus clausus of 60 for diploma students in nursing may be applied as early as October in addition to the numerus clausus now applied in Dentistry and Physiotherapy. Will a numerus clausus perhaps also start to be applied to law, architecture, medicine, pharmacy and to other professions to ensure that the number of professionals does not exceed Malta's needs, including those of the public service?