MAM warns 'strike breakers'

Saint James Hospital doctors will be considered as strike breakers by the medical union if the private healthcare provider today starts offering services usually given at government health centres.

The warning was made by the president of the Medical Association of Malta, Martin Balzan who also said that half the doctors at the private hospital would not be able to provide the services because they did not hold specialist GP training.

But when contacted about this, Saint James Hospital head Josie Muscat said he would not have accepted to offer the service if he did not have the manpower. "I do not have any feuds with the MAM and do not wish to be drawn into this," he said.

The government has reached a three-month agreement with Saint James Hospital to provide night-time medical cover for patients because five health centres would be closed at night following directives issued by the doctors' union.

Dr Balzan said EU regulations made it clear that such government medical services could only be provided by doctors who were listed on the GP register after a three-year specialisation course.

"Half the doctors working at Saint James Hospital are not specialised GPs and are not on the register. They will have to stop working if Josie takes this contract. We are telling Josie not to get involved in this. If he acts as a strike breaker, we will act accordingly," he said.

The union's council met yesterday morning to discuss a plan of action but would not divulge it.

Dr Balzan said health centre doctors were very upset with the government's decision to subcontract services to the private sector and did not exclude that this would be the last straw for some who would look for another job. The union had turned down a proposal to subcontract services to the private sector to alleviate the pressure on health centre doctors but the authorities forged ahead with the idea.

The MAM said the proposal to start offering services as of today was not credible because no tender had been issued. It also said that since the pool of doctors was limited, any contractor would inevitably try to recruit doctors from the health centres, further depleting the medical manpower.

"The involvement of private hospitals could mean a total collapse of the health centres as many of the remaining doctors may decide to leave," the MAM said.

The dispute revolves around a shortage of doctors at government health centres who are feeling overstretched. Dr Balzan said about 40 full-time doctors were doing the work of 110, seeing over 520,000 cases in 2007 and saving the Maltese coffers more than €1.5 million in salaries.

Originally, the union had directed doctors working at the Qormi, Rabat and Cospicua health centres to report for work at other clinics while the Gżira health centre would only open until 1 p.m. However, the government decided to also close the Paola and Floriana health centres during the night.

The MAM said conciliation on the dispute was only possible when the government accepted not to cut any services and came forward with a new credible proposal that could form a good basis for conciliation.

The government reacted saying it was open for conciliation and would not embark on its plan to subcontract services from today if the two parties agreed to go back to the discussions without preconditions or threats of industrial action.

"The MAM needs to explain why it is insisting that its members work at night when they only see one patient every two hours and not give a service between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. when they see five patients an hour," the government said.

Dr Balzan challenged these figures, saying that industrial action by other unions had disrupted patient registrations leading to a distortion of figures. Figures published by the association yesterday showed that almost 2,000 home visits were made during the night in 2007.