Doctors are threatening to take industrial action as from October 14 because of the ‘agreement’ reached between the government and nurses for the latter to administer medicines.
Addressing a news conference this afternoon, Medical Association of Malta president Martin Balzan would not say what the action will consist of arguing that the association did not want to alarm the people.
He said that the decision was taken because MAM was never consulted about the said agreement with nurses even though doctors were the ones who had to face the patients and pick up the pieces.
Moreover, the agreement was not in conformity with the Health Care Professionals Act and the Medicines Act, which said that diagnoses and treatment was given by qualified doctors, dentists for dental care and veterinarians for veterinary care.
Dr Balzan noted that according to this agreement, which, it seemed was only a verbal one, nurses who administered medicine had to be specialised.
But there was no register, authority, courses, qualifications or examinations for specialised nurses.
“The specialised nurse qualification is fictitious because there is no regulatory authority,” he said adding he suspected that the agreement was reached to enable nurses to go up a scale.
MAM, he said, was open for discussions and was not against nurses administering certain medicine, such as drip or oxygen, but this had to be done according to law and following the highest possible training.
For the wrong administration of certain medicines, such as adrenaline, could lead to heart attacks.
Dr Balzan noted that a three-year full time paramedic course existed abroad for ambulance workers.
He said that, following this verbal agreement, the nurses’ complaints about ambulances stopped.
NURSES REPLY TO DOCTORS' CLAIMS
Nurses are as professional as doctors in an autonomous profession which had its own warrant and no one would keep them from carrying out their duty, the MUMN said in a statement this afternoon.
In its statement issued in reply to the doctors' press conference, the MUMN said nurses who would be administering medicines had specialised abroad. It criticised the president of MAM 'for giving the media the wrong information'.
The MUMN said that if the agreement reached with the government was not respected and nurses and midwives would not be in a position to save peoples’ lives, the MUMN would have no other obtion but to issue a directive to its professionals not to go out with ambulances.
In this case, it said, doctors could start to go out with the ambulances themselves instead.
The union said it was informed that during the process for this agreement to be reached, doctors in the emergency department were consulted and it was they who offered to be included in the training nurses were to be given.
The policy to regulate this agreement was also signed by doctors, including the chairman of the departments, the MUMN said.