MUMN calls for enrolled nurses' course to reopen

Gauci Gorga

Feb 20th 2009, 19:11

Mill- hazin ghall- aghar.... Basta State of the art.... Dawn L-affarijiet ma ntqalux s-sena l-ohra waqt il- Kampanja elettorali..... B'Gonzi Pn kollox fis-sod...... MUMN komplu harsu l-interess tal- pazjent.... il-pazjent haqqu ahjar. Kors b'kors ahjar nurse min technician.... Sur Ministru dan Management Crisis??? Jew copy cat? IL-POPLU MALTI HAQQU AHJAR....DAN L-ISPTAR HALLASNA GHALIH AHNA....

P. Anthony

Feb 20th 2009, 07:50

Regarding comment by K Tanti, Health Centres should be left open all week and work should be offloaded from Mater Dei for the benefit of all the people who have to go and spend hours waiting at A & E Dept.
I agree with the MUMN that Enrolled Nurses course should reopen as soon as possible to releive the pressure of work especially in Medical Wards.
All nurses performing clerical work must be deployed on nursing duties to help the shortage of nursing staff in the hospital.

Alan Abela

Feb 19th 2009, 21:48

Nursing is a profession which entails years of training and experience. It certainly cannot be replaced by some poorly trained technicians or whatever they are being called. The role of the nurse is to take care of his patients holistically, both physically and psychologically. In my opinion, the tax payer desrves to be treated as a person by professionals and not as a number on the waiting list. It is a pity that the nurses' role is not much appreciated after all the hard work that is being done.

C Grech

Feb 19th 2009, 21:39

I believe that the public is misguided as regarding the work of a nurse ( especially in the operating dept). A nurse is the person who before, during and after the operation can advocate for the patient as part of the holistic care. It is nonsense to exchange nurses from the operating theatres and replace them with operating technicians. Who will advocate the patient when he is asleep or sedated? The operating technician??? He is not a nurse!!!
As regarding the shortage of staff, who is responsible? Who made the man planning before opening the hospital?
I believe that reopening the course for enrolled nurses as a temporarily measure is the best choice the government can take. Till around ten years ago before the EN to SN conversion course commenced nearly half of the nurses were Enrolled Nurses. Many EN's worked and some are still working in the operating theatres. No one can give the REAL holistic nursing care if he is not a nurse.

Svetlana Fenech

Feb 19th 2009, 21:12

Through experience I understand that a patient in the operating theatre is in need of physical care as well as psychological care and therapeutic patient relationship. These can only be delivered by a qualified nurse. In my opinion operating technicians will be only like robots making machines work but the empathy that the patient needs will only be found in a qualified nurse. For ages I 've heard that the work of a nurse is a vocation.Is this saying still valid?!!!!!!!!!!!The E.N course should reopen not solve problems with opertaing technicians.

T.Vassallo

Feb 19th 2009, 20:49

I fully agree that downgrading the service being provided by nurses presently in operating theatres is not the appropriate solution. We have been working with enrolled nurses for all these years and they have proven themselves to give professional nursing care. We should not always look at the UK as the only role model to copy as regards health care. Other countries in Europe have very efficient health care systems were only professional nurses provide nursing care in operating theatres, why shouldn't we copy these countries? I firmly believe that the introduction of technicians to replace theatre nurses seriously compromises patient safety in theatre. Nurses in theatre are providing an excellent service to patients and we should be motivating them to continue their hard work.

Yanes Desira

Feb 19th 2009, 17:17

Gowing way back to 2005, I was a victim from a career that should have led me to a diploma in nursing. In a diploma Nursing course of year 2003 we were 100 students were in the second year 75 of us failed a simple practical exam. Afterwards we have been called to repeat the year without stipends (while working on a shift without pay in summer DDNRO) One should know that we were on a door step for a new era in opening a state of the art hospital. Just to remember.... that Mater Dei hospital have invested in foreign nurses, that no basic english language is spoken from some off.

J pisani

Feb 19th 2009, 15:36

It seems that hon dalli doesn t appricate the work carried out by nurses and has every shallow knowledge about theaters it reflects in evrey speech and statment that he says. It also seems that dalli is using the issue of hospital waiting lists as scapegoat so to hide the real probems of the country thats it facing .
It is not true that 13 theatres are closed as only 7 do not work on a regular basis and also one of the theares mentioned from those 7 is an emergency theatre
.Ialso would like to note that the theatres are open 24 hours aday 7 days a week and365 days ayear when most people are celebrating or sleeping we are ther doing our job which seems rarley appricated.
Also most of the time doing whole night lists of emergencies these are never mentioed by dalli Also now dalli seems that he came with the magic formula something which most likley someone else put in his mouth

Maria Connie Coleiro

Feb 19th 2009, 15:07

It is a shame to degrade the health care service in such a manner i.e. introducing unnprofessional staff in order to solve the problem of shortage of professional staff. Who calls this 'state of the art'? Who can call this good health service? Why do we have to copy other countries in the wrong? Do we have a mind of our own to think? We can find the solution by investing in nurses who will study in an appropriate course and hence can be called professional nurses. In this way our country will have a better contribution to an excellent health care service.

Jesmond Grech

Feb 19th 2009, 15:01

All this ministerial blubber is purely a cost cutting exercise. The position as taken by the MUMN is legitimate, one has to adapt to circumstances and not take drastic decisions instantly. The introduction of a lower grade in a sensitive area like the operating theatres is a very risky move.

I cannot understand how individuals who are not directly affected by this matter pretend to comment on such a delicate issue.

James Galea

Feb 19th 2009, 14:50

I agree with the proposal of the mumn to re open the EN courses instead of opening new courses for operating technicians as the nursing care will deteriorate.This is because nurses at the operating dept give emotional,physical,psychological and moral support to patients prior to,during and after the operation.One should remember the nursing care needed after the operation especially in the immediate recovery area.It is best to recruit nurses as they can work in several health care setups.The EN course provides qualified nurses in a relatively short period of time and this will alleviate shortage of nurses throughout the health sector and one should consider opening the EN course on part time basis offered to nursing aides already employed within the government sector.

Keith Vassallo

Feb 19th 2009, 14:40

Why we have to copy UK all the time Hons. Dalli?? Operating Technicians work only in UK.
Enrolled Nurses have been giving an excellent service in the Malta's Health system for a long time now. Maybe it was ok for 8 years ago to stop Enrolled Nurses courses cause at that time we had enough nurses but today we have a crisis and Enrolled Nurses are the only solution. With Operating Technicians the goverment is chosing the cheapest way out and I don't think the maltese population is expecting lower standards cause the goverment has a financial crisis? That's why we spent that LM300 million on the building so that we drop the standard from qualified Nurses to Operating Technicians???
Hons.Dalli reconsider your position cause you are not telling the truth to the Maltese citizens. Everyone some day will need the operating theatre's service but I don't think anyone would like to be operated in lower standard theatres with lower standard staff.

J. Abela

Feb 19th 2009, 14:32

I agree with the previous contributors. The solution is not in my opinion to reduce nurse qualifications - a nurse is a nurse is a nurse. We need a mulmodal approach that gets all nurses doing proper nursing work including making sure that nurses performing clerical work are transferred from their cosy posts (wow - EUR2000 yearly premium; can I have some of that??). Then nurses need to get good support staff to help them with their work such as clerk and even these operating theatre assistants. Obviously this is not soemthing the MUMN would like as it is apparently only concerned with getting the best deal for their members (whether they deserve it or not) rather than the good of the patients they are supposed to serve.

K Tanti

Feb 19th 2009, 13:15

The EN course was stopped 8 years ago not five as the last intake was in the year 2000. With many of the ENs are doing a conversion course to become SNs, why the MUMN is proposing to go back 8 years? I do not even think that the MAM someday will make a medical course shorter or decrease qualifications for the medical course just to make up for the shortage of doctors. In my opinion there is no shortage of nurses but only misplacement. I agree with M Bonello that many ( not all) outpatients nurses do clerical work, which can be done by clerks. In addition why nurses from health centres such as Cospicua, Rabat and Qormi ( which are closed on Sundays and PH) work their Sunday duty in other health centres and not making their duty in places such as A and E department where really is the need

M. Bonello

Feb 19th 2009, 11:28

I think it would make more sense for the MUMN to get all the nurses in the outpatient departments who basically only do clerical duties back into the wards where they can really do useful nursing work and justify the nursing premium they receive which can amount to EUR2000 per year!