Hospital see-and-treat section closes after one day
Nurses threaten industrial action
The new 24-hour see-and-treat section within St Luke's Hospital's casualty department which opened on Wednesday was forced to close the following day after the doctors' union refused to support the initiative saying it had not been consulted.
The working group set up to address the problem of long waiting times at casualty is due to discuss the issue on Monday. The Malta Union of Nurses and Midwives, which had come up with the idea of the see-and-treat section, has threatened to take industrial action within the department if no solution is reached during the meeting.
The new section, which operated efficiently on its first day, was set up on the suggestion of the MUMN in an effort to reduce waiting times for patients after the nurses' union had threatened to take industrial action because its members could not provide a satisfactory level of care.
It also aimed to ease tension caused by long waiting times of up to six hours, which have sometimes led to the verbal and physical abuse of hospital staff.
However, the Medical Association of Malta said there were not enough doctors in the Accident and Emergency Department to deal with minor cases "which", it contended, "should not be in the emergency room in the first place".
The MAM's general secretary, Martin Balzan, said there were barely enough doctors to deal with the genuine emergencies that arose. Therefore, it did not make sense for doctors to be compelled to treat non-urgent cases immediately.
While, he said, the union sympathised with health professionals who bore the brunt of patients' anger, it was irked because it had not been consulted before the authorities decided to open the see-and-treat section on Wednesday.
"Any change in doctors' working conditions must be discussed with us rather than third parties," Dr Balzan said, adding that the association would have talks with the hospital authorities in a bid to find solutions to the problems plaguing the department.
Dr Balzan said the solution to the emergency department's long waiting time problem was to increase the number of doctors.
When contacted yesterday, a spokesman for St Luke's Hospital confirmed that talks were being held with both the nurses' and doctors' unions.