The Accident and Emergency Department and other critical parts of the State hospital are overstretched due to a lack of consultants, the Medical Association has warned.

MAM general secretary Martin Balzan told the Times of Malta that the A&E was among the most overloaded parts of Mater Dei Hospital but had been given almost no new consultants to help deal with an “ever-increasing workload”.

“The hospital’s annual report shows that the areas with the heaviest loads, which should be priority areas, are not being addressed,” Dr Balzan said.

Driving the point home, Dr Balzan said that the A&E department had handled some 128,000 patients last year, an increase of more than seven per cent over the previous year, but consultants had not been added to help spread the burden.

Sections known as medical specialities, Dr Balzan said, were also not being supplied withnew specialists.

“With an average yearly increase in admission of ten per cent, admitting 20 per cent of the hospital’s total patients, not a single consultant has been appointed since 2013 in most areas,” he said.

A&E had handled an increase of more than seven per cent, but consultants had not been added

The only new consultants, he said, were one in gastroenterology and another in cardiology.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for newly appointed Health Minister Chris Fearne yesterday said that the A&E department had, over the past two years, seen a major transformation.

The spokeswoman said 11 new cubicles, two new resuscitation rooms and a brand new paediatric emergency department had been added to the A&E.

This had been accompanied by an increase in manpower, with nurses bolstered from 76 in 2012 to 120, 80 per cent of which were senior nurses.

Some 70 new emergency ambulance responders had been em-ployed and specialist trainees had increased from 14 in 2012 to 28 last year, she said. The new paediatric A&E was manned by 11 additional nurses, who undertook specialised training, while a consultant with a special interest in paediatric A&E was in the process of being appointed.

Dr Balzan, a veteran respiratory physician, caused a stir when he claimed that a general lack of new consultants was leading to lengthy hospital waiting times.

He had said patients were waiting more than a year before being examined by a specialist at the State hospital – a wait many felt was simply too long, and led to thousands of missed specialist appointments.

Last month this newspaper reported that more than 60,000 doctor’s appointments were missed by patients at Mater Dei last year.

Dr Balzan, however, has gone a step further, saying the diagnosis bottleneck was so bad that it was the real reason behind reduced operating waiting lists.

“Patients are now waiting to be diagnosed, so the number waiting to be operated on has been reduced.

“The government’s claim that the operating waiting list has been solved just isn’t true, it’s an illusion,” he said.

His claims have subsequently been denied by the government, which insists “there has been a net increase of 57 specialists over and above specialists brought in to replace retiring ones”.

Reacting to this, Dr Balzan yesterday said the number of new appointments was “a trickle”. He said only five new consultants had been appointed last year, with another six in 2014. The majority therefore, had been appointed during the election year in 2013.

Dr Balzan questioned why the number of appointments had slowed down and when, if at all, it would pick up again.

ivan.martin@timesofmalta.com