Your leader (April 24) referred again to health employees and industrial action taken in the health sector by the relevant unions. Unfortunately it was again against the interest of health employees. As if these employees are always to blame when industrial disputes occur. You never blame the health division. This is very strange indeed.
Take the case of the ambulance drivers. The health services` section of the Union Haddiema Maghqudin has submitted to the government a claim for an `allowance` to these workers. In your leader you stated "just why the `drivers` deserve an allowance has not been explained yet". Had your leader writer gone through past press releases issued by UHM on this issue, he would have found the answer.
Until some time ago, ambulance drivers were required to drive ambulances and handle patients on stretcher or wheelchair on and off the ambulance. These duties were not the only ones carried out by these workers.
Though not in their job description but because they were experienced, ambulance drivers helped the nursing staff when these professionals needed to apply "emergency medical equipment" to patients.
Recently the role of the ambulance drivers was changed radically. A basic first aid course was carried out to ambulance drivers by the Malta Red Cross Society on behalf of the health division. This first aid course was organised because it is not the first time that an ambulance is requested without the presence of a nurse and on its way to hospital the patient requires first aid by the ambulance driver.
On the issue of this first aid course, it is relevant to say that the health division is questioning its content only `now` and when it was organised on its behalf. For the health division to question a first aid course organised by the Malta Red Cross Society on its behalf is a farce, to say the least.
The UHM is also in favour of upgrading the knowledge in first aid of ambulance drivers in relation to paying these workers the requested allowance. The UHM has always been in favour of retraining for government employees so that their skill will be enhanced and so the service provided by these workers is upgraded.
Ambulance drivers are not ordinary drivers. They perform duties above their call of duty. They are an important link in the health service. If the government says that it has the good of the population at heart, true recognition for ambulance drivers must be provided by facts not by insults and arrogance.