The Gozo General Hospital is unsafe, not only for staff but for patients and their families too, according to the nurses union chief.
The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses has issued a series of directives to nurses working there pending remedial action.
Paul Pace told Times of Malta the hospital lacked basics such as alcohol handwash to prevent the common MRSA bug, bins in wards, toilets had no washbasins and those that had one lacked soap dispensers.
Most of the beds did not even recline or had no bedrails, “against all health and safety regulations”.
Nurses are demotivated, frustrated and angry that nothing is being done about the situation
He said the hospital was a “mess”, without any proper management and lacking basic safe practices.
Apart from being understaffed, nurses had no uniforms and most of them were reporting for work in plain clothes.
“Nurses working at the Gozo hospital are demotivated, frustrated and angry that nothing is being done about the situation they face on a daily basis and were getting paid for overtime a whole year later,” Mr Pace said.
The situation in hospital was going “from bad to worse”, he said, adding that even the food for staff, which was being prepared by a new contractor, was “shameful”.
The overcrowding phenomenon was not only present at Mater Dei Hospital because wards in Gozo usually had between 12 and 15 extra patients.
In the circumstances, the union on Saturday wrote to the permanent secretary at the Health Ministry, Joseph Rapa, informing him about a series of directives to nurses and midwives after several meetings on the issue were inconclusive.
As from January 6, nurses have been ordered not to take patients for surgery or help them move around if the staff complement in the female general ward is less than six nurses. The directive will still come into effect if the management imposes a stop leave to increase the number of nurses.
Nurses have also been instructed to refrain from phoning off-duty colleagues to ask them to report for work, even if ordered to do so by management.
In addition, nurses will not be doing any paperwork, such as issuing blood results, or supplying domestic staff with cleaning material.
Gozo has never been in such a disastrous state
In his letter, Mr Pace warned that if by January 15 there were no bins in wards and an alcohol rub at every bed, the union would declare the hospital as unsafe with “high risks of infections” and that “relatives and patients should consider suing the hospital for any infections when treated in Gozo”.
Moreover, come February 7, nurses in the Accident and Emergency Department are to refrain from accompanying ambulances on emergencies.
As of March, the union has instructed nurses not to use hospital beds that were not height adjustable or which could not recline.
“Gozo has never been in such a disastrous state, especially where staff issues are concerned. MUMN is ready to take on anyone who challenges such a statement,” Mr Pace said in his letter.
He added that the directives would only be lifted when the issues were resolved and not by holding meetings because, in the past, this proved “useless”.
“It is a pity that the Health Ministry is in denial and is more prone to neutralise MUMN directives than to solve the issues,” he said, adding that the Gozo hospital was being “managed by crisis”.
Questions sent to the Health Ministry remained unanswered at the time of writing.
mxuereb@timesofmalta.com