An octogenarian who had to wait for 90 minutes for an ambulance summoned by her doctor will certainly be relieved to hear that strike action ordered by the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin has been called off.

The union had ordered ambulance drivers not to respond to calls unless accompanied by a nurse. The dispute was over the management of the ambulance garage.

The action was called off on Saturday following an agreement between the union and the health authorities that the ambulance garage foreman would be replaced. For the elderly patient's relatives, the incident was "very unfair and shocking". Her daughter, Sandra Dingli, said: "When it had not yet arrived after an hour had passed, we thought they had got lost. When we called again we were only told that the ambulance would be turning up." The family insisted on being given more information and was finally informed of the industrial action.

"This can put people's lives in danger," Ms Dingli said, asking why there were not enough nurses to accompany ambulances.

Although the action did affect emergencies, some patients had to wait for as long as two hours before an ambulance arrived, a spokesman for the Health Parliamentary Secretariat said. Half of the 70 phone calls received every day consisted of emergencies and require a nurse to ride on the ambulance. However, throughout the duration of the action a nurse had to go out on calls not considered serious and which would normally not require an accompanying nurse.

Extra nurses had to be assigned to ambulances but the management did not always manage to cope. In addition, more porters than usually were being deployed on each trip to carry stretchers because ambulance drivers were not doing such tasks.

"This is a substantial added cost which is being incurred by Mater Dei Hospital to ensure that hardship to patients is minimised," a spokesman for the health authorities said. The UĦM accused the Social Policy Ministry of not honouring an agreement reached earlier this year to replace the garage foreman. It said that, although a new person had been sent to run the garage for a number of weeks, the former foreman had returned.

A similar directive was issued last April and lasted for two weeks amid claims that ambulance drivers at St Luke's Hospital were favoured at the expense of those employed at Mater Dei.

UĦM health section secretary Joe Bonello insisted the action did not affect urgent cases, where a nurse was always present, but admitted that if cases were not urgent, patients might have had to wait.