It is incredible that the Health Ministry still refuses to acknowledge that an insufficient number of beds is the root cause of all the recent troubles and sufferings at Mater Dei Hospital.

No amount of time-wasting, beating around the bush with unconvincing rhetoric, obviously intended to camouflage past and present mistakes and miscalculations, will ever improve the situation.

The latest stratagem is to involve all and sundry, related to all levels of services at Mater Dei, to join what is termed a task force to seek and implement solutions.

This force is bound to remain task-less unless it first accepts within the hospital grounds, will be the main objective affecting constructive deliberations and decisions, naturally taking the utmost care for avoiding past pitfalls of encouraging additional highly expensive sprawl.

Well done once again MUMN, the nurses’ union, for refusing to be party to the folly affecting national health interests unless vital additional bed space is taken into account as a sine qua non.

The unsavoury political game being played at Mater Dei must end.

Should, however, the diehards in the ministry and administration continue to insist on imposing their chaotic plans they must immediately be substituted by knowledgeable and straight-thinking heads fit to tackle and permanently solve the various problems facing patients and staff.

The MUMN is thankfully providing a superb service to enforce the provision of studied additional beds accompanied by all the necessary furniture and medical facilities that make up an efficient hospital ward or unit. Nothing less is acceptable.