University should accept all applicants for nursing courses - MUMN

The University should accept all applicants for a nursing diploma or degree who had the necessary qualifications, the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses is insisting.

Addressing a news conference this morning, MUMN president Paul Pace said that the university last year would not accept everyone but accepted 165 students after its complaints.

This was, however, still not enough. With less services and specialisation about 300 were admitted to nursing courses in 1995 and an average intake of 300 nurses each year was necessary.

Mr Pace said that Malta was about 700 nurses short. These included specialisation and relief nurses, as well as nurses to replace those on maternity leave.

In May, he said, the union organised a campaign to attract people to nursing courses.

Antoinette Saliba who coordinated the campaign said the response was positive.

Mr Pace said that from the 165 admitted for the university courses last year, 30 had already dropped out.

In April, he said, he wrote to the Prime Minister asking him to set up a task force under his wing and which would include representatives of the union and officials from the health and education ministries to try to see what can be done for the university to be able to take in more students.

The Prime Minister said the university was autonomous but he would consider the task force.

Mr Pace said he had replied that unless there was an intake of 300 nursing students a year at University, there would be problems, especially with the reforms in the pipeline.

He said that in the meantime the government had opened call for application for nurses from anywhere in the world and some 40 Pakistanis applied.

Mr Pace said he doubted their level of education and qualification but the union could not refuse them because nurses had problems taking leave, there was a shortage in the complement and this was affecting patients.

While such an intake could be accepted as a short term measure, the government needed to make sure that the doors were open for Maltese nationals who wanted to become nurses.

He said that the union’s concern was that because these Pakistanis did not speak Maltese they would be given specialisation posts while Maltese nurses would be sent to geriatric hospitals where Maltese was essential.

Mr Pace said that at Mater Dei, where the nurses’ complement in each ward was supposed to be eight nurses, there were only three to four. At the Intensive Therapy Unit, where the complement was one to one, there was only one nurse for every three patients and at St Vincent de Paul there was only one nurse for every 45 patients at night.