Mater Dei has been reprieved from strike. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

The doctors’ union will today attend a “critical” conciliatory meeting with the University of Malta after the director of labour intervened to avoid industrial action.

The meeting, organised by Director of Employment and Industrial Relations Noel Vella, is aimed at ironing out issues between the doctors’ union and the university.

The Medical Association of Malta demands to be recognised as the representative of lecturing doctors at the Medical School instead of the University of Malta Academic Staff Association.

Martin Balzan, MAM general secretary, specified that the doctors’ one-hour strike planned for this morning had been “suspended not lifted”.

“We are attending the meeting with the university with an open mind and a positive attitude. The worst case scenario would be the reactivation of the directives there,” he said when contacted. “It’s a critical meeting.”

He said the association had ordered action at the university as doctors felt completely sidelined, “as if they were second class academics”.

“This issue is not about money. Not at all. It’s all about prestige. The structure being discussed by other unions representing lecturers promotes full-time, resident lecturers while completely side-lining those who are visiting lecturers.

Medical academics are not inferior to other academics and this is what we are going to say today,” he said.

Regarding its dispute with the Health Ministry, the union is satisfied that its proposals have been met favourably, prompting the union to suspend action across all State hospitals and clinics tomorrow.

“We suspended the directives following a two-hour meeting with the health department on Sunday during which we thrashed out all the issues and set a number of timeframes by when the implementation of the collective agreement has to take place,” he said.

As a result of these developments, the one-hour strike which doctors were meant to stage between 8am and 9am tomorrow will not take place.