A new nursing head will take over at Mater Dei Hospital this week, just a year after the acrimonious transfer of Charmaine Attard.
Dr Victoria Sultana, a University lecturer who spent some years working in the UK, will take over the €50,000-a-year job from Isabelle Aquilina, appointed to the post 12 months ago, The Sunday Times of Malta is informed.
Sources said that soon after his appointment, Health Parliamentary Secretary Chris Fearne indicated he wanted a change in the department.
When contacted, Ms Aquilina made it clear she did not resign but agreed to move to another position while retaining her financial package.
“As an employee of the government I do what I am asked to do,” she said, when asked why she was being transferred after just a year.
“Mr Fearne told me that I did a very good job at Mater Dei. Now he needs me elsewhere,” she said.
As an employee of the government I do what I am asked to do
This newspaper is informed that Ms Aquilina, who was given the position by former health minister Godfrey Farrugia without a call for applications, will now be managing the nurses employed in the primary healthcare sector.
The sources also said that the new nurses’ head will also have a new assistant Carmela D’Amato, a canvasser of the Parliamentary Secretary for the Paola district. Questions sent to Mr Fearne remained unanswered.
The post of Director for Nursing and Midwifery at Mater Dei has been mired in controversy, after Charmaine Attard was told that her services were no longer needed just two months after Labour’s election to government last year.
Ms Attard, who had been in the post since 2009 and with a contract expiring in 2015, was transferred to Karin Grech Hospital.
The Health Commissioner in the office of the Ombudsman, who investigated a complaint by Ms Attard, lambasted the government for its decision and said she should either be reinstated or compensated.
The government chose to pay Ms Attard €2,000 in compensation.
Ms Attard is now suing the government and demanding to be given back her post.