Average of 121 operations a day carried out in February - minister

The government is willing to revise the terms of reference of a proposed task force to discuss the situation of hospital overcrowding, which the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses is criticising, as long as this is agreed upon by all the social partners involved, health minister Joe Cassar said this morning.

The minister was speaking during a news conference in which he gave the February statistics related to surgery procedures.

The MUMN, which has refused to join the task force, has argued that the terms of reference fail to refer to the problem of overcrowding at the hospital. It said the terms only spoke of temporary actions to tackle overcrowding, by proposing to put patients everywhere, including in other institutions.

The minister said that a meeting was held yesterday between the MUMN and the hospital management and he hoped that, as a result, the union would block its industrial action deadline of March 26.

Dr Cassar said that 3,507 operations were carried out in February, an average of 121 a day.

A total of 3,386 were carried out in the same month last year, 3,175 in 2010, 2,999 in 2009, 2,910 in 2008 and 2,670 in 2,910, the last February at St Luke's Hospital

Of the operations carried out last February – 84 per cent were elective (scheduled), the rest were emergency.