Nurses suspend actions

The harsh industrial actions that nurses and midwives were due to take on Monday were suspended following a meeting with the government yesterday morning.

More talks between the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses and Social Policy Minister John Dalli are expected to be held early next week, union president Paul Pace said.

"We need to establish a time-table of talks geared toward resolving the pending issues," Mr Pace said.

The union and the Social Policy Ministry yesterday issued a joint statement saying they were both interested in improving the health service and had decided to set up a committee chaired by Mr Dalli to deal with the issues raised by the MUMN and find solutions.

The strike directives, including some that have been in force since the end of last month, were lifted just before yesterday's meeting after Mr Dalli made it clear he would not meet the union unless it called off the actions.

"I will not meet with anyone who is holding a revolver pointed at my head," he told the media about two hours before the meeting, adding that he could not understand the "cowboy tactics" being employed by the union.

During a rally earlier this week, about 100 nurses who attended were told that, as from Monday, they should stop admitting patients to St Vincent de Paul Residence for the Elderly and to Zammit Clapp Hospital, to shut down district health centres and, most controversially, to stop being on call at Mater Dei's Renal Unit.

Hospital superintendent Frank Bartolo has said the last measure could cost lives.

The actions were called primarily over staff shortages, the failure to provide staff meals and the lack of a professional warrant. But the union is also angry that the authorities are not honouring the collective agreement signed late last year, especially a clause allowing retiring nurses to remain in the job.

Mr Dalli denied that most of the agreement was not being honoured, although he admitted that there were some clauses that required more talks. Talks were underway with other government officials to ensure that all nurses can continue working, he added.

"We need to work together but not with these actions hanging over our head. I will not meet the union when every time I open my eyes I am faced with a new threat," he said.

Mr Dalli admitted that problems did exist but added that strikes were not a solution. "Threatening the life of patients is not something we will tolerate and we are not going to accept situations where there is an obscene abuse of laws that allow unions to take partial industrial action."

Union members were also directed to walk out of operating theatres if the authorities went ahead with plans to employ nursing technicians, not to change the dressings of patients who were not in their ward and not to allow patients to wait in the pantries before undergoing surgery when no beds are available. Nurses at Boffa Hospital were ordered not to give treatment to patients unless two nurses were in attendance.