The parents of a nine-year-old boy running a high temperature had to resort to private care as public sector paramedics remain on strike.

The parents, who did not wish to be named, said they had to take a blood sample from the Mosta health clinic to Mater Dei Hospital but were turned back. It was only after they went to a private hospital that it was established their son had salmonella.

Public sector paramedics have been following directives for the past two weeks and, despite fresh proposals tabled by the Health Division, they have been instructed to keep up the strike action.

The industrial action has been the cause of several complaints but what seems to concern patients most is that medical laboratory scientists were told not to process regular tests ordered by general practitioners or health centres.

The Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin insisted that the directives excluded urgent tests but readers who contacted The Times said they had to refer to private laboratories to get samples tested.

The union said that the government’s new proposals were “limited” and did not reflect the union’s demands to update a 2007 agreement.

Union section secretary Gian Paul Gauci said that, instead of providing counterproposals, the Health Division on Thursday came up with a completely new working structure that would ultimately leave paramedics in the same situation they were in.

In a reaction, Health Minister Joe Cassar expressed disappointment that, contrary to informal indications, the government’s proposals had not been accepted.

At the end of June, about 800 paramedics were instructed, among other things, not to carry out community work or use means of communication.

The directives affect all grades of paramedics in the public sector, including physiotherapists, radiographers, occupational therapists, medical laboratory scientists, speech language pathologists and audiologists.

Physiotherapists said they had graduated from the University of Malta with a Bachelors or a Masters degree and others were even reading for a doctorate.

Yet, although they were referred to as professionals, they were not considered as such when it came to salary remuneration and working conditions.