The nurses union has welcomed the health commissioner’s report, saying it confirmed its calls for new work practices at the hospital’s emer-gency department.

Health Commissioner Charles Messina’s report also vindicated the nurses’ constant requests to increase the number of hospital beds, the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses said. It had long been saying that the hospital needed another 300 beds.

Tabled in Parliament earlier this week, the report coincided with another drawn up by the National Audit Office on waiting lists for surgical operations. Both highlighted similar problems: a bed shortage and the lack of centralised management in hospital, including the non-integration of various information systems that, in turn, limited monitoring. The union said the authorities needed to cut down on repetitive and time-consuming work such as taking four doctors to decide whether to admit a patient to hospital.

It welcomed the Auditor General’s report, which, it noted, confirmed its long-standing complaint that the Government did not even have a centralised list of pending operations as these were kept by the consultants, giving them the prerogative to decide who should be operated first.

“It is time that the government takes the bull by the horns, stops beating around the bush like the previous Administration and starts addressing the hardships of the people,” the MUMN said, calling for a similar report on Mount Carmel Hospital.