Security staff at Mater Dei Hospital are again being criticised once more for failing to tackle aggressive behavour.

The MUMN nurses union said that a female nurse at Mt Carmel Hospital who was accompanying a patient to the Mater Dei Emergency Department last Thursday was physically assaulted by the patient, and the security staff looked on. The nurse needed to be hospitalised.

"Not only did the security staff not offer any assistance, but they moved away and abandoned their post," the union said.

The police took long to intervene because a policewoman was not present.

The hospital Security Response Team was called but no one turned up and the nurse suffered several blows to her body and was also psychologically scarred. She does not want to work at Mt Carmel any longer, the MUMN said.

In October, the company that provides security services at Mater Dei Hospital suspended two of its officers after an internal investigation found they had "failed to actively intervene" as a policemen was beaten up by a patient at the Emergency Department.

Following the latest incident, the MUMN said today that its appeals in the past for action to tackle such abuses had fallen on deaf ears but it would not tolerate such incidents any longer. 

Therefore, it was ordering nurses not to accompany aggressive patients unless private security was provided. Furthermore, aggressive patients may not be let out of their single room without the presence of two security officers.