Doctors' action to shut three health centres

Half of Malta's health centres will be shut down indefinitely from next Monday under a new directive called by the doctors' union yesterday. In a meeting held late in the evening, the Medical Association of Malta decided to call on doctors working at the Rabat, Qormi and Cospicua health centres to report for work at other clinics, in a bid to ease the shortage of doctors.

This means that these clinics will have to close down. Under the same directive, the Gżira clinic, one of the busiest in Malta, will only operate in the mornings.

In anticipation of the directive, the health authorities had told The Sunday Times that they were working on a contingency plan but this would not keep these health centres open if doctors failed to turn up.

The directives come as overstretched health centre doctors often end up at the receiving end of verbal and even physical abuse by patients who have to wait for a long time to see a doctor.

Association president Martin Balzan said health centre doctors had already approved the directives, with the council giving its seal of approval yesterday. He said doctors who would normally be on duty in one of the centres which will remain closed will be asked to work from another clinic. "We want to concentrate our resources to give a better service to the patient," he said. Today, the association is expected to register a dispute with the health authorities.

Doctors at the clinics are often on their own handling scores of patients, who in turn face long waiting times. The union has long been complaining that this is putting doctors in the line of fire.

Last November doctors working at health centres had threatened to strike if one more doctor ended up being abused. Their warning came after a medic working at the Paola health centre was punched in the face by a patient. Eight weeks earlier a security guard at the same clinic was allegedly manhandled by a patient's relative while a doctor was assaulted at the Qormi health centre last month.

Meanwhile, ambulance drivers yesterday started following industrial action and are not going out unless accompanied by medical staff. The Union Ħaddiema Magħ-qudin has threatened to stop the practice of accompanying patients home unless a solution to the impasse is found. The dispute revolves around a claim that ambulance drivers at St Luke's Hospital were favoured at the expense of those employed at Mater Dei.