The government has reached a three-month temporary agreement with St James’ for service to be given at the Zabbar and Sliema hospitals between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. when the Cospicua, Qormi, Paola, Gzira and Floriana health centres would be closed.
This service starts on Monday, the same day action ordered by the Medical Association of Malta comes into effect.
MAM announced some days ago that it was issuing directives because although it has been calling on the authorities to concentrate human resources in fewer clinics as a short-term measure to alleviate the shortage of doctors, no such action has been taken.
As a result of its actions doctors will not be offering their services at the Cospicua, Qormi and Rabat clinics.
Mr Dalli said yesterday that nurses would still be working at these centres.
The government this morning invited MAM to take the case to conciliation but in its reply the association said it would consider an attempt at conciliation only once it was clear that the government had adopted a more flexible negotiating approach.
Mr Dalli said this evening that the real reason for the doctors’ action was that they wanted to continue working nights.
He said that there was a complement of 17 doctors working the 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. shift with each seeing an average of seven patients an hour. in the 1 to 5 p.m. shift, there was a complement of 10 doctors with each seeing an average of four patients an hour. In the 5 to 8 p.m. shift, the 10 doctors on duty saw an average of seven patients an hour while in the 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. shift, each of the 11 doctors on duty saw one patient every two hours. This was after making allowances for leave, sick leave and court sittings.
The minister said the government would remain open for talks but only if the directives were withdrawn.
MAM could not continue to decide which health centres should be open and by how many people they should be manned.
It was the government and not MAM that was managing the centres. If MAM wanted to manage the centres itself, it should employ and pay the doctors, he said.
The government, Mr Dalli insisted, was not breaching any collective agreement but just changing the shift.
Mr Dalli said that through the agreement reached with St James, the Cospicua, Qormi, Paola, Gzira and Floriana health centres would be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m., patients using the Cospicua, Qormi and Paola clinics should make use of St James Zabbar and those using the Gzira and Floriana clinics of St James Sliema.
The Rabat health centre would also close at 5 p.m. and patients using it should go to the Mosta centre, which would remain open 24 hours a day.
The minister said that this was a temporary solution until the problem of doctor shortage was addressed.
The long term solution being sought was for four health centres to remain open 24 hours a day with better equipment to be able to take on some of pressure of Mater Dei. Services given at home would also be strengthened. An additional 20 doctors were need for this.