The Gozo General Hospital is unprepared for Ebola, the nurses’ union said yesterday, a claim later firmly rejected by the government.
The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses said it was informed that the required hoods and respiratory equipment for nurses were nonexistent. Training had been done using the available gowns and not the proper personal protective equipment (with fully hooded suits and blowers) required to nurse Ebola patients.
“In fact such hooded covered gowns which as yet are not even available in the Infectious Disease Unit in Mater Dei Hospital, are also not available for the Gozo General Hospital nurses,” union president Paul Pace said.
He said that, although there was a contingency plan for the transportation of patients from the Gozo hospital to Mater Dei Hospital, a mock exercise to identify the flaws in this plan had not been held.
The government, however, stood by a previous statement, made on Saturday, that the Gozo hospital was well-prepared for Ebola.
“In line with advice given by the World Health Organisation and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the Gozo General Hospital has been provided with fluid impermeable gowns, visors and FFP3/N95 respiratory masks. Training on this personal protective equipment has been provided and is ongoing,” a Health Ministry spokeswoman said.
Following an analysis of the response to a potential case of Ebola on October 3 – which later turned out to be malaria – the Health Department decided to go one step further and procure full face hoods and air purifying respirators. These started arriving at Mater Dei last week and will be available at Gozo General Hospital in the coming days, she added.
On Saturday the government categorically denied a claim made in an online news report that there was a suspected case of Ebola in Gozo and that Gozo’s hospital was ill-prepared for such an outbreak.
Yesterday the ministry told this newspaper that the Ebola Virus Disease Monitoring Committee has been preparing staff and resources at the Gozo hospital in line with recommendations by WHO and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
“This includes training on the use of personal protective equipment and the identification of an isolation area. A recent ECDC report recognised the efforts made by Malta... Malta is one of only seven European countries with availability of isolation equipment for medical evacuation purposes,” the spokeswoman added.