Nurses offered stress counselling

Nurses and midwives will soon be able to attend counselling whenever they feel they need support.

An agreement signed yesterday between the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses (MUMN) and the Richmond Foundation will offer assistance and stress-control therapy to members of the union's Florence Nightingale Benevolent Fund.

The fund offers assistance to members who are going through a difficult time in their lives. About 65 per cent of union members are also members of the fund and any union member is eligible to join.

MUMN president Rudolph Cini said scientific studies had found that the effect of nurses' jobs on their health could be compared to that of miners and because of the irregular hours they suffered from gastro-intestinal conditions and sometimes even colon cancer.

Mr Cini said nursing was not an attractive job since it often entailed seeing other people in pain and experiencing trauma. The job itself entailed both physical and mental stress. "If they feel better they are more likely to offer a better service," he said.

Doris Gauci, the chief executive officer of the Richmond Foundation, said through the counselling sessions the foundation aimed to identify issues that could be causing stress among the employees. "It is important to recognise stress because even though it cannot be eliminated, it can be managed," she said.

Ms Gauci said if people addressed stress-related issues, the onset of mental health problems could be averted.

She stressed that confidentiality was respected and no personal information given during the sessions would be revealed unless the person expressed an intent to hurt himself, hurt somebody else or mention the abuse of minors.

The counselling would not just cover work-related stress, for a person carried his problems with him.

Asked whether stress was related to the working conditions, Ms Gauci said some jobs were inherently stressful no matter how good the working conditions were. She said seeing people suffering and dying was one stress-causing factor.

The service is already being offered to other organisations and Ms Gauci said the demand was quite high. She launched an appeal to other unions to address the safeguarding of their members' mental health in collective agreements.