The authorities at Mater Dei Hospital are to conduct a bed remodelling exercise to establish the usage of each bed at the hospital and consider in which areas the number of beds could be increased, Health Minister Joseph Cassar said this afternoon.

He was replying to questions on the bed shortage at Mater Dei during a press conference on his ministry's activities at the end of the third year since the general election.

Dr Cassar said that two wards, with a total of 55 beds, have just been opened at Karin Grech Hospital, for patients in rehabilitation, easing some of the the pressure on Mater Dei.

With regard to pressure on the hospital's emergency department, Dr Cassar said the government is investigating the discrepancy regularly noted between the number of people who visit the hospital's emergency department during weekends and weekdays.

He said, as an example, that whereas at 6 pm yesterday there were 26 patients waiting for a bed in the wards after being admitted in emergency, they increased to 58 by 6 am today.

The minister said the authorities were closely following the situation, not least because illnesses did not distinguish between weekends and weekdays. There could be cases, he said, where doctors did not see patients early enough during weekends, and then conditions worsened and people had to go to hospital.

On waiting lists for operations, Dr Cassar said that the number of operations performed at Mater Dei last year was 41,795, an increase of 3,000 over 2009.

Mario Galea, Parliamentary Secretary for Care of the Elderly, said the government was considering putting dementia pills on the schedule of free medicines, provided by the government. He stressed, however, that such medicines did not heal the condition but relieved the symptoms in mild cases.