Nurses at Mater Dei Hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department are calling for a long-term solution to the “unacceptable conditions” they face including the ever-increasing overcrowding headache.

“It is very demotivating for nurses who have been trained to provide a better service to be unable to do so. The lack of appropriate legal structures to safeguard our practice prohibits us from practising what we have been certified to do,” they said in a letter to Health Minister Joseph Cassar.

Nurses are not allowed to administer medicine before people are taken to hospital, even in a life-threatening situation. The nurses asked for a change in the law that would legally cover them in such situations.

When contacted, a spokesman said the ministry was discussing a new collective agreement with the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses, which included accommodating this role for nurses in specific contexts. The standard operating procedures of the Emergency Department are also being developed.

In their letter, signed by 83 per cent (60 nurses) of Emergency nurses, they expressed concern about the “most pressing problems bed shortage, overcrowding and insufficient human resources. Patients admitted to what is known as Area Two and the paediatric corridor were being cared for in “unacceptable conditions where sanitary facilities are lacking and basic safety is a long forgotten luxury”, the letter said.

When contacted, the president of the Emergency Nurses Union, John Zammit said that about 45 patients were stranded in the Emergency corridors on a daily basis.

On Thursday, Mater Dei CEO Joseph Caruana said the number of people calling at the department over the past two months increased by nine per cent when compared to two years ago.

Emergency visits in December rose by 6.7 per cent when compared to December 2009, while people who called at the department this January increased by 11.8 per cent over January 2010.

The number of those who remained in hospital for medical treatment in December decreased when compared to the same month of 2010 but increased if compared to 2009. Mr Caruana said the hospital absorbed the increase by changing its methods of handling patients. Some were transferred to Karin Grech Hospital in Guardamangia on a daily basis for rehabilitation, freeing space for people who needed acute care at Mater Dei.

He said there was always room for improvement, however, the hospital was coping.

This was slammed by Mr Zammit. “We’re not coping, that’s not true,” he said.

The situation was unfair for both the patients and the staff who spent 12 hours of “hell”, Mr Zammit added.

The increase in Emergency visits is no longer related to winter sicknesses but was spread throughout the year as it boiled down to the ageing population.

Labour spokesman Marie Louise Coleiro Preca said the shortage had landed the hospital in the worst possible situation and the government should shoulder its responsibility.

Reacting, the ministry said the opposition ignored the advance in health care services, which was leading to an increase in the average age of the Maltese people.

The government was reacting to such challenges with “concrete initiatives”, including increasing the number of consultants at the department to seven. Twenty beds were also added to cater for patients under observation and 16 others would be added in the coming months.

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