Doctors concerned about lab staff action

Private family doctors are worried that blood samples will have to be discarded by laboratory personnel who are following union directives not to process regular tests.

On Wednesday, some 800 paramedics were instructedby the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin not to carry out community work, see new outpatients or use means of communication.

Medical laboratory scientists were also told not to process regular tests ordered by general practitioners or health centres.

The Association of Private Family Doctors said this meant patients would still have blood samples taken but these would have to be discarded.

“This is cruel and unethical. At least the staff that take the blood samples should have been asked not to take them in the first place,” a spokesman for the association said.

He added that targeting primary care patients “does not absolve the union from responsibility because patients from this sector can also have acute conditions that require urgent labora-tory investigations”.

But UĦM insisted its directives exclude life-threatening and emergency situations.

The paramedics’ industrial action has been taken more than a year after the union presented its proposals to update a 2007 agreement on their working conditions.

Jean Paul Gauci, the section secretary for the union’s health services sector, said the Health Division was dragging its feet and “we could not wait any longer”.

Paramedics in the public sector who are following the directives, include physiotherapists, radiographers, medical laboratory scientists and occupational therapists.