The hallmark of nursing is a caring and emphatic attitude towards patients and their relatives. So when a nursing union contemplates taking industrial action, it needs to gauge the possible anguish action could cause to vulnerable patients.
The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses ordered industrial action in mid-August “in response to transfers of personnel taking place without replacements being found”. This action has affected the level of service being given to patients at health centres. According to the nurses’ union, 60 clinic appointments are being cancelled every day due to a shortage of nurses at the Gżira health centre.
The whole dispute with the health authorities revolves around the issue of nursing staff shortages. According to the MUMN the selection process of nurses who applied for a job should have started earlier than after 10 days from the closing date.
The Government insists that the call for the recruitment of nurses could not start in March, as was the case last year, because of the election. It also argued that “although there was no budget, the ministry identified financial resources to employ nursing graduates”. The process now seems well underway despite the fact that the recruitment process in the public service is hindered by “bureaucratic steps which will take months”.
Many patients and their families rightly ask why such a dispute was not referred to the Director of Industrial and Employment Relations before hurtful industrial action was taken by the nurses’ union.
The union directives “effectively closed the community clinics in Tal-Ibraġ, Pembroke, Msida, St Julian’s, San Ġwann, Ta’ Xbiex and Sliema”. Nurses, on their union’s directives, cancelled appointments at all clinics including the diabetics, ophthalmic and wound clinics, as well as bloodletting appointments, “since the minimum staff complement of five nurses was not being reached”.
Many patients and their families would argue that such draconian measures amount to bravado on the part of the union which should have first tried to resolve this issue by sitting round a table with the health authorities as well as the Director of Industrial Relations to hammer out a solution to this problem.
The comment of a senior MUMN official that “they either beef up the staff or remain without a service” is not a “simple” solution as claimed by this officialbut, rather, a disrespectful disregard of the well-being of patients who have a right to an adequate medical service in the country’s health centres as and when they require it.
There is no doubt that the recruitment process in the public service needs to be re-engineered to make it less bureaucratic and more able to respond effectively to the demands of government departments that may need to recruit staff with urgency.
Re-engineering processes take time mainly because one has to manage the difficult cultural issues that are often ingrained in the way that things are done in the public service. Unless those promoting change in work practices gain the support of those affected by efficiency enhancing changes, process re-engineering will often fail.
The nursing union, as well as other unions, should be more active in insisting on proper process re-engineering in the public sector rather than resorting to sabre-rattling to force quick action on the part of the leaders of government departments.
Unions should form part of the change process rather than merely flex their muscles and use vulnerable people as a tool to acquire short-term success in their industrial disputes.