In a press statement issued on April 11 and published by The Times on April 12, Paul Pace claimed that the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses is the organisation which should be credited with the fact that this year we will be seeing the fruits of efforts to alleviate the nursing shortage. I would like to say a few words about the significant work done by the Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, which has translated into increased capacity and student placements.

This academic year also saw the enrolment of two Ph.D. candidates in nursing...- Roberta Sammut, Head, Department of Nursing, University of Malta, Tal-Qroqq

The role of our University (the only one in the country) is to respond to needs as identified by the government with regard to human resource requirements and the required professional education to develop these human resources. This role has always been taken very seriously by the Department of Nursing which does its best to provide what the country needs in this area and also to follow developing trends on a global stage.

Back in October 2007, it became apparent that the number of nursing graduates needed to increase substantially as the evidence provided by the stakeholders, both in the public and private health care sector, indicated a growing shortage of nurses. Efforts were initiated at that time to increase the number of student places.

These efforts have been explained innumerable times in media statements by the University which were issued in response to the claims by the MUMN that no action was being taken to alleviate the nursing shortage. They included the training of clinical nurses to teach and assess students in practice, the formation of agreements with private hospitals and Church-run entities to increase the availability of clinical placements and the restructuring of the four-year nursing programmes to more intensive three-year programmes which increased the availability of clinical placements in view of a smaller total number of students enrolled at any one point in time. This process necessarily required time, resources and a considerable amount of work. Despite the difficulties, it was completed successfully and the Department of Nursing has taken all qualified applicants into its courses for the past three years, even before the numerus clausus was officially lifted in 2011.

The increased number of student places on pre-qualification programmes over the past five years was only one of the ways in which the Department of Nursing has sought to meet the health care needs of the Maltese population.

In fact, several new nursing programmes have been launched. These included undergraduate certificates for qualified nurses working in speciality areas including oncology, critical care, paediatrics, care of the elderly, palliative care, emergency nursing, theatre nursing and rehabilitation.

Our department was among the first within the University of Malta to develop a wholly online degree which is available to all health care professionals including nurses. The aim of this course was to make continuing education more accessible to practising nurses while decreasing the burden on the service by removing the need for nurses to absent themselves from the workplace to attend lectures. This year we will be seeing the graduation of the first cohort of students on this online programme.

Another important milestone will be the graduation of students from the full-time mental health nursing programme, which was developed to meet the needs of mental health care in our country. This academic year also saw the enrolment of two Ph.D. candidates in nursing within our department.

The nursing profession in Malta has made great strides over the past 24 years when the first degree programme in nursing was introduced by the University of Malta. We should be celebrating our successes, the enthusiasm being shown by our nurses for lifelong learning, the opportunities now available for professional development and the growing respect being shown to this profession by the public and other health care professionals.