Patients’ health ‘at serious risk’

The government yesterday slammed the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin over the dispute with paramedics in the public sector, saying the union had raised their expectations to levels “which cannot be met” while putting patients’ health at serious risk.

Despite fresh proposals tabled by the government last week and the UĦM stepping up its directives, the two parties have failed to make headway on resolving their differences. In a joint statement issued as the paramedics’ industrial action entered its third week, the Finance and Health ministries yesterday expressed disappointment that the UĦM continued to disrupt services across public hospitals.

“It has now become evident that the UĦM will have it no other way but their way,” the ministries said.

At the end of June, 800 paramedics, among them physiotherapists, radiographers and occupational therapists, were instructed not to carry out community work or use means of communication.

Medical laboratory scientists are not processing non-emergency tests ordered by general practitioners or health centres, and patients are having to queue for a minimum of 30 minutes on outpatient appointments.

Yesterday The Times reported that the parents of a nine-year-old boy with a high temperature were turned back when they presented a blood sample at Mater Dei and it was a private hospital that established he had salmonella.

The UĦM is seeking to update a 2007 agreement on the paramedics’ working conditions.

Physiotherapists who spoke to The Times complained that although they were referred to as professionals, they were not considered as such when it came to salary and working conditions.

The government yesterday explained that all public service employees were placed within 20 different salary scales, with scale one being the highest.

Salary packages were established through negotiations between the unions and the government on the public service collective agreement.

Scale benchmarks for professionals were set in sectoral agreements and the public service collective agreement stipulated that these benchmarks could not be moved around, the govern-ment said.

It was not possible to negotiate different salary scales for groups of employees within the public service and neither could it automatically promote all paramedics.

It said there had already been agreement with the union that it would allocate over €2.5 million in the forthcoming collective agreement to increases for paramedics over the next five years.

Also, although governments across the EU had taken austerity measures that resulted in salary cuts, the Maltese government did not have to do this and was being cautious to avoid this eventuality.

The Health Ministry has proposed the introduction of a new grade in a higher salary scale which would be filled by paramedics based on meritocracy. The government would issue calls for applications from time to time to fill this grade or give the opportunity for paramedics with 20 years of experience in possession of a Masters’ degree to sit for an interview to move into the new higher salary scale.