With Gozo General Hospital being in the limelight in recent days, as the Minister for Health, I would like to share with your readers the ministry’s vision for this very hospital.
One of the first decisions that the present administration took last March was to place it firmly within the Ministry for Health, embarking on a much-needed reform to bring this 297-bed hospital up to 21st century standards and practices.
In spite of the many problems inherited, over the past eight months, significant changes have been taking place with the aim of creating a coherent and robust hospital structure, starting with restructuring of managerial, financial and procurement processes in line with established practices for other entities in health.
A stock take of the inherited personnel was carried out. Gradual redeployment took place in line with employee competencies and aptitudes, yielding efficiency gains.
The hospital kitchen, which previously rated very poorly and was in an unacceptable state, has been outsourced to a private contractor since October.
It is now rated grade A, ensuring that staff and patients alike are provided with good-quality food fulfilling all requirements.
The endoscopy suite at the operating theatre had never been used because of lack of manpower.
Resources have now been identified and the endoscopy suite will start being utilised from this month, freeing up space in the main operating theatres and enabling more surgical interventions to be carried out in parallel.
This ensures that more Gozitan patients are treated in Gozo but also enables the possibility for the Gozo Hospital to assist Mater Dei in waiting list initiatives.
In fact, since June 2013, more than 100 Maltese patients needing colonosocopy through the national colorectal screening programme have had their intervention carried out in Gozo, reducing the waiting time for this intervention considerably.
The same goes for the Imaging Department at Gozo General Hospital, where the Bone Density Unit was opened last May as part of a state-of-the-art imaging unit.
Over the past eight months, significant changes have been taking place
All Gozitan patients can now have their bone densitometry carried out in Gozo and the unit also accommodates Maltese patients who opt to have their scan in Gozo.
An ongoing refurbishment exercise has been embarked upon, addressing much needed works at the hospital mortuary, the administration block, the corridors, the roofs, the kitchen, and so on.
The chemotherapy project that was announced prior to the election was rescoped because of lack of funding but with creative re-engineering of existing ward space, and a significant saving in public funds, a chemotherapy lounge will be opened, together with a much-needed Day Care Unit.
The chemotherapy lounge will ensure that Gozitan cancer patients are as much as possible treated in Gozo, while the Day Care Unit will help relieve crowding and work overload in the general wards, which, needless to say, suffer the same issues with social cases as their counterparts in Mater Dei.
This unit was proposed, planned and started last June and will be fully functional this month. It will also enable the hospital to support further waiting list initiatives.
The nursing complement has increased by 27 within the space of eight months, something that has never happened in the past.
New consultants in anaesthesia and surgery have been recruited, and more specialities are to follow to ensure access to and equity of clinical services are the same across the islands.
For the first time in many years, the Gozo hospital is included in training rotations for our young doctors.
This government will continue to address identified gaps in human resources to ensure an optimised clinical service of the highest quality.
My ministry’s vision for this hospital is ambitious. Projects for the next three years include the relocation and upgrade of the Victoria Health Centre, a new Ortho-paedics Unit and ongoing refurbishment of the remaining sections of the hospital.
EU-funded projects include the installation of PV panels and reducing the carbon footprint of the hospital and a €5 million project to replace older hospital equipment, including most of the hospital beds.
In the light of recent developments with the Malta Union for Midwives and Nurses, the ministry wishes to note that the union is also signatory to the collective agreement and will be engaged in conciliation meetings in the near future.
As the Minister for Health, I assure the Maltese and Gozitan public that the patients’ interests will remain topmost on this ministry’s agenda.
Godfrey Farrugia is Health Minister