Emergency admissions get priority over surgery patients

A Cassar

Sep 3rd 2009, 20:12

@c. camilleri Where exactly in this article is there written that anyone will not be working? The directive only makes sure that empty beds are filled in and not leaving patients in the corridors of the emergency department....how exactly does this translate to employees slipping out of work?? @Ray Buhagiar By no stretch of fantasy will someone needing a knee replacement or cataract operation go to the emergency department and be admitted to hospital, even less operated on. This directive is just shifting the resources from elective work to emergency....as is done by all responsible health worker.....there shouldn't even need to be a directive.

Ray Buhagiar

Sep 3rd 2009, 17:00

So now if you want to have your operation earlier, don't go to a consultant but to emergency. Wouldn't this increase the abuse at emergency dept? It seems that this nursing action is simply shifting the problem and solving it. The probem at Mater Dei is that there are too many kingdoms

v.pulis

Sep 3rd 2009, 16:29

Teachers don't always strike for pay rises. When they strike for better conditions at the place of work we get the same reactions from the same people. By better conditions I mean having the means to do their job better in the interest of their charges.
Just for the record I am not in any way contrary to the nurses' actions as I myself have seen first hand and more than once the stress under which they work.

c. camilleri

Sep 3rd 2009, 16:28

But why is it that Govt's employees always find excuses to slip away from their work?

A Cassar

Sep 3rd 2009, 15:29

Dear Mr Pulis
May I point out that this is NOT a strike. Quite the contrary....the Nurses have been instructed to do what is best for the patients and not what suites the government!
They are not asking for a pay rise...but just that it is unfair for patients to be kept for hours in casualty. The government will have to postpone elective operations.....but it doesn't want to....just so he doesn't look bad. If teachers "strike" because they are concerned about the safety of the children under their care I can assure you that no one in his sane mind would complain!!

Dr Thomas Armatys

Sep 3rd 2009, 12:47

It is unfair to state that patients "may have their operation postponed due to nurses' industrial action". The problem is that our hospital does not have enough beds available to cater for everyone. If no beds are available somebody has to be given priority, and that has to be given to the emergency cases. You can't turn away someone with an immediately life-threatening condition, but you can postpone the operation of someone who is waiting for a routine procedure. It is not fair towards the patients waiting but it is the only way where lives are at stake.
The lack of beds is CERTAINLY not the nurses fault, and neither is the shortage of staff.

v.pulis

Sep 3rd 2009, 11:08

While aknowledging the right for every worker to strike, the lack of reaction by the general public to the nurses' strike is very noticable in high contrast to the reaction when teachers strike for a single day or for a few hours. But then nurses do not serve as baby sitters when parents are both at work.

Galea. L

Sep 3rd 2009, 10:19

So our state of the art hospital does not have the necessary staff and equipment to operate as a state of the art hospital.