The MUMN has hit out at the government for having hidden consultants' names when it replied to a parliamentary question on how many operations each had performed.

The parliamentary reply was given on Monday, when the name of each consultant was replaced by a code. Parliamentary Secretary Chris Fearne had explained that this was a data protection measure, taken since a wrong impression could be formed about some consultants who performed a small number of operations, when their primary role was not to perform surgery.

MUMN president Paul Pace in a statement this morning said that what had happened was 'not right'.

"It clearly shows that MrFearne is not acting as a Parliamentary Secretary with the interests of the people at heart, but is acting as a Consultant Surgeon protecting certain consultants who might not be delivering. That is not right," he said.

He said that the MUMN now hoped that other professions, working in hospitals would be similarly protected by the pretext of data protection when parliamentary questions are answered.

Mr Pace also noted that the Health Division recently boasted that it had introduce a tracking system at the Emergency Department in Mater Dei hospital which would be reducing the waiting time in the E/A to 'six hours'.

"If this was actually true, MUMN would be the first to congratulate the Health Division since it would be a great achievement to the patients and to the people making use of the E/A department by reducing such human suffering caused by huge waiting times," he said.