Update 3: Government employs 59 new nurses

The government has approved the employment of 59 new graduate nurses.

Following an induction period, the new nurses will start working for the Health Department. Their employment will lead to the opening of a new hall with 28 beds at theKarin Grech Rehabilitation Hospital, the government said.

It said that the beds at this hospital will number 215 this year, against the 60 that were available in 2007.

The government was commenting following a news conference this morning by the PL's health spokesman Marie Louise Coleiro-Preca, who said that a new rehabilitation hospital should provide more space so that people at Mater Dei not requiring acute care to be moved to this hospital, reducing overcrowding.

The government said that the number of beds at the rehabilitation hospital could only be increased with the appointment of new nurses and health professional.

Mrs Coleiri Preca said the government should listen to solutions being proposed by unions to solve the overcrowding problem at the Mater Dei Emergency Department.

She said that, on average, there were between 50 and 70 extra patients every day spending hours on stretchers in the corridors.

She said that yesterday an elderly man fell off a stretcher he had been on for too long.

Patients, Ms Coleiro-Preca said, were spending two to three days on a stretcher and waiting 10 to 12 hours to be treated. Many cases, she said,  were related to an aging population, such as people suffering from falls. Because of the situation, consultants were being pressured to release people early.

The trade unions, she said, were presenting the government with solutions, but the government was doing very little about them.

Spaces being used for the storage of uniforms could be transformed into wards, for example.

The people, Ms Coleiro-Preca said, paid a lot of taxes for the hospital but they were not getting the service they expected.

The Labour Party, she said, was evaluating the situation and would be drawing up its own policy for Mater Dei Hospital.

Patients should not be placed in corridors used for storage of uniforms - MUMN

The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses is completely against the transformation into wards of spaced currently being used for the storage of uniforms.

In a statement, the union denied to having ever made such a proposal.

The MUMN said that although it always protested with the Health Division on overcrowding at the Emergency Department and against keeping patients on stretchers for long hours, it was undignified to place patients in such corridors, which were not equipped.

Moreover when similar places were used in the past, the overcrowding problem was not solved and patients were put at risk.

The MUMN pointed out that there were not enough nurses at Mater Dei to cover the present halls and this shortage would be felt more if patients were also placed in corridors.

It said that if this was done, it would not be able to guarantee that Maltese people would be given the care they deserved.

The MUMN appealed to Mrs Coleiro-Precca to carry out the required research before coming up with such solutions as the sector was a sensitive and delicate one.

They also called on Mrs Coleiro-Preca to be more specific when quoting trade unions and point out which union she was quoting.

ENU proposal aimed at reducing congestion

The Emergency Nurses' Union said i thad proposed the transformation of the area where uniforms are stores inot a ward so that the dignity of patients currently being left in corridors due to a lack of space would be respected.

The congestion of stretchers would also be reduced to the benefit of the people requiring immediate medical attention from the Emergency Department.