Malta's healthcare facilities will have 400 new beds for acute cases thanks to a reorganisation of the hospital plans, Health Parliamentary Secretary Chris Fearne told The Sunday Times of Malta.
“We are reworking rooms and adding a bed in each ward. In some cases we have even demolished walls to make more space,” Mr Fearne said.
The need for some 400 more beds was raised by former Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia last January, when the ministry had drawn up a formula to calculate how many were required based on the country’s ageing population.
Malta’s average number of acute hospital beds when compared with the population was “much lower” than the EU average, Dr Farrugia had said.
Does this mean we will not have beds in the corridors? I can’t promise that
A report by the World Health Organisation last March called for an even greater increase in beds, saying that Mater Dei was 500 short. The report had also said the number of beds in Maltese hospitals had decreased by 28 per cent over the past decade.
Patients contacted by this newspaper earlier in the week complained of having spent up to four days receiving treatment in the hospital corridors, as no room was available in the saturated wards.
Mr Fearne apologised for the shortage and said the government had made both long and short term plans to address the situation.
“We will be freeing up quite a bit of space. Does this mean we will not have beds in the corridors? I can’t promise that.
“But, I can promise we are working day and night to address the situation,” he said.
Among the plans, Mr Fearne said, was a new agreement with private retirement homes to care for elderly patients who were ready to be discharged.
“We will be freeing up around 100 beds to cope with the winter surge of patients through this new agreement,” he said.
Other short term solutions included moving entire sections to the new Oncology Unit. These include the Haematology Unit and will free up dozens of beds to be used for acute treatment.
In the long term, Mr Fearne said, the government was moving towards offering hospital services outside of Mater Dei.
Asked whether a new hospital would eventually have to be built, Mr Fearne replied: “The hospital is too small to cope, St Luke’s was bigger. We are already thinking about offering hospital services beyond Mater Dei.”
New beds, however, are not the only solutions up the parliamentary secretary’s sleeve. Mr Fearne said the emergency department now had 12 new doctors and 10 more nurses on staff.
The size of the narrow cubicles had also been increased and more patients will be processed after space was freed by moving the X-ray machine to another department.
On the perpetual problem of out-of-stock medication, Mr Fearne said the number of unavailable prescriptions had shrunk from 130 to fewer than 10 thanks to the employment of more personnel in recent weeks.
“We introduced more staff because they simply couldn’t cope. There were files that kept piling up,” Mr Fearne said.
The procurement system by which medication is purchased by the government had also been reviewed. This, Mr Fearne said, meant that when suppliers failed to provide the necessary medication, the government would step in and provide the products itself.