Updated 7.15 p.m. - The Nationalist Party said this evening that it had been the one to propose that hospital patients should vote in hospital, rather than being taken to polling stations.

Reacting to a statement issued this morning by the MUMN nurses' union, the PN said the union was acting like it was the first to have made the proposal.

Yet the proposal was made by the PN at the Select Committee for Democratic Change. There had been no reaction from the Labour Party, which later walked out of the committee for partisan reasons, the PN said.

In its statement, the MUMN appealed to the political parties to  amend the law to safeguard patients from hardships during voting.

The union wants the Electoral Commission to take ballot boxes to hospital to eliminate the transport of patients to polling stations.

Patients, it said, had the right to vote in a dignified manner. It said that although it held several meetings with the two main political parties, the electoral law was not changed and the union had to issue directives for last Saturday's local elections.

All nurses and midwives followed the directives and the hospital administration had to ask members of the nursing management to accompany patients to polling stations.

The union said this situation was unacceptable as the nursing management staff were needed to manage their respective hospitals. They were also not be enough to cover the general elections because of the greater number of patients involved.

Although both parties had agreed with MUMN that the electoral law needed to be amended, no meetings were held between the parties to work on this, it said.

The union warned that should such amendments not be made before the general election, it would issue directives to nurses once more.