Mater Dei Hospital is at least 200 nurses short, according to their union which yesterday thanked its members for their “outstanding performance”.
The statement comes five months after the union called for immediate recruitment of some 160 graduates, promising protests if the government continued to treat the problem lightly.
In September the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses complained that 10 days after a recruitment call, the government had not yet hired any nurses, despite critical staff shortages at the hospital.
That same summer the union had reported that some 60 clinical appointments were being cancelled every day due to a shortage of nurses at the Gżira health centre.
In an open letter to Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia, the MUMN yesterday said the nation should be grateful for the nurses’ work at Mater Dei Hospital on Monday.
Mater Dei Hospital was overcrowded that day but no operations were cancelled – some 100 were carried out despite no beds being available, union president Paul Pace said.
This, he added, was the second “feat” of the sort this winter.
Nurses in operating theatres and the day surgery unit worked against all odds, while a sacrifice was also made by those working in various wards and corridors, who on a daily basis were working with less than half the nursing complement.
“Mr Minister, nurses are not made of cast iron and excessive pressures could lead to human error or even mental breakdown,” said Mr Pace in the letter.
“MUMN advises that such pressures and excessive workloads are not to continue whenever Mater Dei Hospital has no beds available. Nor should nurses be taken for granted and such excessive demands be made on a frequent basis.”
Apart from a shortage of beds, all corridors, wards, various holding bays and the paediatric corridor were full of medical patients.
Nurses were performing “miracles” to cope with the demands of a huge number of acutely ill patients.
Excluding the extra beds, Mater Dei Hospital was “at least 200 nurses short”.
The shortage was not just limited to Mater Dei Hospital, but it was prevalent in other hospitals as well, Mr Pace told this newspaper.