MUMN gives government week's deadline to act on nurses shortage

The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses (MUMN) said today that it would order industrial action next Thursday unless the government took serious action to address an acute shortage of nurses.

Union President Paul Pace said the situation was such that there were 187 nursing vacancies at Mater Dei Hospital alone, and some nurses were even working for between 60 and 80 hours per week.

He said that measures agreed between the union and the government a year ago to encourage former nurses to go back to work had still not been adopted by the government, because of bureaucratic reasons.

The union, he said, was calling for the immediate employment of nurses on temporary or part-time basis to ease the immediate problem, but it was also urging the authorities to reduce the duration of the nursing course and for new courses to be opened more frequently.

The government, Mr Pace said, needed to come up with a five-year manpower plan so that the nursing shortage could be resolved and it would not recur.