Mater Dei Hospital’s dentistry department is operating with half its staff complement, forcing the authorities to farm out jobs to tackle the ever-increasing waiting list.

The department currently has just 14 full-time dentists, down from the total of 30.

Several patients – including children –have received letters from the department informing them that their appointments were being cancelled and that they would be contacted in due course.

The problem at the department began several months ago, when it experienced a mass exodus of dentists.

The situation created problems for the remaining staff members who were forced to take on the additional workload.

We stepped in with directives to ensure that the department was staffed with six dentists

But the Union Ħaddiema Maghqudin stepped in last March, ordering industrial action at the department in a bid to prod the authorities into addressing the situation. But this just led even longer waiting lists for fillings.

UĦM’s section secretary, Gian Paul Gauci, told the Times of Malta when contacted that its action “was due to the lack of action by the management” and that it actually prevented the total closure of the dentistry section at the hospital’s emergency department.

“Last February, six dentists were required to treat dentistry patients in the emergency department, but this number was reduced to four so we stepped in with directives to ensure that the emergency department was staffed with six dentists,” he explained.

Following discussions, the union lifted the directives “as a sign of good will”, in the hope that staff levels would be beefed up, and after the management informed it that it would be farming out appointments for fillings to the private sector.

Mr Gauci said that while the government had referred some patients to private clinics, it had not yet issued a call for new dentists to replace those who had left. A spokeswoman for the Health Ministry acknowledged the problem at the Dentistry Department, saying the government had issued a call for expressions of interest from private practitioners willing to take patients for fillings.

She steered away, however, from admitting that the department was facing a shortage of staff.