Evolving healthcare professionals' education

The country faces a significant shortage of nurses and doctors and the University must see how it can meet the increasing demand for more healthcare professionals in Malta. It must start its recruitment campaign now to ensure it attracts a larger number of students into its healthcare professional courses in October.

However, another problem is that healthcare professionals in Malta often do not perform only those duties pertaining to their grade. For example, many tasks carried out by nurses in Malta are done by health assistants in the UK, and various tasks carried out by local doctors are performed by nurses in other countries.

Similarly, a number of pharmacists in the UK are supplementary or independent prescribers, and most repeat prescriptions are written out by pharmacists in UK health centres, often with better service, whereas these take so much valuable time of doctors in local health centres.

Hours of work and tension currently experienced in local health centres by healthcare professionals and the public alike could also be avoided. Unfortunately, healthcare administrators are also known to resist change, even that initiated by politicians.

The Institute of Health Care (IHC) will later on this month be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the introduction of nursing and midwifery programmes at the University. The IHC today caters for the education of all healthcare professions other than medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry. Medicine and pharmacy are part of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, while dentistry is a separate faculty.

At one time, the possibility of merging the medicine and dentistry faculties with the IHC to avoid duplication of services and to save administrative expenses was being discussed. However, it is now clear that a decision has been taken to change the IHC into a fully- fledged Faculty of Health Care Professions.

The Faculty of Medicine and IHC must ensure the students are educated to be able to practise according to modern trends. The new structures evolving in the IHC and the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, such as the concept of a new four-year graduate course in medicine leading to the award of an MD degree, such as is available in the UK, should take into consideration the new functions of healthcare professionals.

Such an evolvement in the healthcare professions could certainly help to overcome the present impasse brought about by the shortage and mismanagement of healthcare professionals, especially due to holding on to antiquated practices and resistance of change.

It is often said that it is not only buildings and technology that are needed to provide the best education; however, the lack of such facilities certainly do not help University academics' task to provide a state-of-the-art education in the healthcare professions.

When Mater Dei Hospital was opened, the IHC, together with the medicine and dentistry faculties, were moved from their previous premises attached to St Luke's Hospital to a small building which was previously earmarked to be part of the new hospital's administration building.

The result is that some departments were not even allocated an office, there is a lack of research facilities, and the plan to bring the basic medical sciences closer to clinical departments has failed.

Hopefully, after the investment in constructing the Faculty of Information Technology building on campus, the next step will be to build a suitable premises for the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery and for the evolving Faculty of Health Care Professions.