The nurses’ union is ready to order industrial action in all state hospitals if consultants are paid more to work extra afternoon shifts but its members are not.
“The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses never requested a remuneration package to change work practices or deal with added beds. However, if consultants are paid improved overtime rates to make afternoon shifts more attractive, I want the same for nurses,” union president Paul Pace insisted.
Due to staff shortages, nurses were so overworked that they preferred not working overtime, he said. This was compounded by the fact that many nurses, mostly women, had to care for their families. As a result, staff complement remained low.
If consultants, who already had a very good salary, were to be incentivised financially to work afternoons – to help tackle the bed shortage situation – so should nurses, Mr Pace insisted.
Health Minister Joseph Cassar has been insisting that the key to tacking the hospital’s chronic bed shortage lies in changing work practices by, for example, controlling early admissions and patient discharges.
He said the government was proposing that doctors and consultants would work more afternoon shifts. Mater Dei Hospital management is meeting individual doctors to encourage more of them to work afternoon sessions.
The president of the Medical Association of Malta, Martin Balzan, last week suggested that the government should make afternoon shifts more attractive by improving overtime rates for consultants.
When contacted yesterday, Dr Balzan explained that nurses and doctors already received overtime payment – one and a half times their hourly rate. However, consultants were paid a flat rate. All he was asking for was that consultants be treated like everyone else.
Irked by this proposal, Mr Pace pointed out that consultants already had “handsome” salaries and so should not require further financial incentives to serve the public’s needs.
According to the 2007 government-doctors collective agreement, which expires this year, a full-time consultant’s annual salary rose from €30,000 in 2007 to €65,000 in 2010. Consultants who accepted such conditions had to forfeit their private practice.
Those who retained their private practice and worked at least six mornings at the state hospital had their salary increased to €43,000 in 2010 from €26,000 in 2007. The majority of consultants preferred this option.
Mr Pace pointed out that the average nurse earned about €18,000 a year.
In a recent interview with The Sunday Times, Dr Cassar said that unions were only willing to change their practices if the government paid up.
“No doctor wants to work in outpatients in the afternoon because they want to work in their private clinics. Nurses are the same. They don’t want to work afternoons because they have families,” he said.
Mr Pace yesterday called on the minister to pinpoint what bad work practices should change to tackle the bed shortage problem.
“I suspect it’s mainly consultants’ practices but the minister needs to specify whether it’s consultants, doctors or nurses... If nurses’ changes in work practices can help with the bed shortage, the union is willing to meet tomorrow and there is no need for a task force,” he said.
When contacted, a ministry spokesman said such matters should be discussed in meetings and not through the media.
The government has appointed a task force to deal with the bed shortage situation. The MUMN is refusing to be part of it as it is insisting it does not agree with the terms of reference that it says fail to look into long-term solutions.
The task force is due to meet tomorrow for the first time.
The minister had gone on record saying he did not believe the task force could be successful without the nurses’ cooperation and that the door remained open for them to join.