Emergency nurses threaten to strike

The Emergency Nurses’ Union is calling on the Health Department to sort out the overcrowding problem in the Casualty Department or face industrial action.

Union president John Zammit said they would be meeting on Monday to discuss the way forward and industrial action was “very likely” in the following days.

The union said the two main areas in the department were “blocked” with over 40 patients waiting on a stretcher in corridors for a bed in the ward.

The Health Department, Mr Zammit said, was not taking any notice of the problem and “some form of pressure” was needed to get it to sort it out. Any directives, if necessary, would be issued next week, he said, evidently not too hopeful the department would do anything by then.

However, the department later pointed out the state of the Accident and Emergency Department reflected the overall situation with a large number of people being affected by seasonal influenza.

The peak in hospital admissions at this time of year, it said, was due to chest infections as a result of complications of seasonal influenza, mainly in frail, elderly or chronically ill individuals. This was the same pattern of illness occurring across the Europe, it explained.

Influenza-like illness in Malta trebled over the last 15 days, the department said, and Mater Dei Hospital registered over 200 admissions of “very sick” people as in-patients between New Year’s Eve and 4 p.m. yesterday.

While pointing out the management and staff were doing their utmost to handle the increased number of patients, the department said it understood and appreciated the increased workload on the nursing, medical and other staff and was working hard to ensure a smoother patient flow.

On November 15, things in the department escalated when one patient needed resuscitation in full view of those around him. This was the second such occurrence since February.

“The situation gets worse every day,” Mr Zammit said, pointing out the union had been highlighting the problem for three months warning it would get worse over the winter months.

When asked if consultants had been pressured to discharge patients and vacate beds – a rumour that has been circulating in hospital circles – Mr Zammit said: “That is not the solution to the problem.” They had to find an alternative place to keep the patients, he said, emphasising the situation left patients waiting for hours on end with no basic toilet facilities.

On top of that, the nurses in the department were spread thin, he said, and, to make matters worse, on Monday, there was no place to put patients who were taken to hospital by ambulance.

“In a few days we’ll have to set up camp,” he joked, pointing out this was really and truly no laughing matter.

Although the nurses did their utmost to keep patients as comfortable as possible, the union said it would hold the department responsible if anything happened.

“The lack of proper planning in the state-of-the-art hospital is only causing pain and suffering to patients and increased de-motivation to the staff,” the union said.