The Government has given in to mounting pressure to address the lack of nursing staff in hospitals and health centres and accepted to immediately employ the 140 recently-graduated nurses.

The Health Ministry said the nurses who had recently qualified from the University’s Faculty of Health Sciences would be given jobs in the coming days.

The news was music to the ears of Paul Pace, president of the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses, who called on the Government to recruit the nurses immediately on a casual basis as they were sorely needed.

The Government had said that measures were being taken to speed up the process but yesterday announced that the new graduates would be employed immediately.

We felt the need to recruit these nurses with immediate effect

It explained that the process to recruit the nurses would usually take between two and three months because the applicants had to be interviewed.

“The situation is such that, to strengthen and further consolidate the present healthcare services and plan for future developments, both the Ministry for Health and the Ministry for the Family and Social Solidarity felt the need to recruit these nurses with immediate effect,” the Government said.

It explained the Constitution allowed for immediate temporary engagement during a recruitment process to help alleviate the burden. After the temporary engagement period, they would all be employed on a permanent basis following the conclusion of the recruitment process.

The Health Ministry pointed out that the call for the recruitment of nurses “was the most fast-tracked” of all calls made.

Reacting to the good news, Mr Pace said it had taken a lot of “time, energy and effort to convince the Health Division on such a simple matter”.

He said the division would also use the same criteria for the engagement of midwives.

The shortage of nurses forced the closure of several clinics at the Gżira Health Centre over the past weeks, resulting in the cancellation of about 60 appointments daily.

The Nationalist Party said in a statement the delay in employing nurses had a negative impact on patients and other nurses who were burdened with a heavy caseload.