It seems that unless something is urgently done to resolve the pitiful situation in the Emergency and Admissions Department in Mater Dei Hospital, a front-of-house unit in our prime state-of-the-art hospital will be reduced to a slum alley.

All the pride that the Prime Minister expressed on the occasion of the opening of our spanking, new, modern acute teaching hospital will come to little or nothing and it will then be too late to say we might have been closer to the people.

We cannot run away from the fact that one is facing a serious problem affecting the general population with a probable impact on the outcome of the next general election.

The acute need is to focus on the problem, treating it as a first priority and putting aside for the time being other projects the Health Department has in view. For too long the minister has scattered the resources available on too many projects which with our ever growing national debt we could hardly afford.

Yet, although the writing has been on the wall for a while, this is not the time for judgement. Appropriate action is the order of the day, aiming at results in the short term.

Social cases should be transferred to other hospitals without delay, and a much higher percentage of the 60 per cent of persons seeking unwarranted treatment at the Accident and Emergency Department returned to their GPs or health centres.

An observation ward in close proximity to the A&E is imperative. And meanwhile current managers who have allowed the situation to sink to its present state of degradation should give way to others with a better sense of handling the clinical needs of persons with serious and urgent medical problems.