The Health Ministry said this afternoon that industrial action ordered by the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses at Mt Carmel Hospital was irresponsible and endangered patients' lives.

In a strongly-worded statement, the ministry said that nurses had been directed by the union not to collect medicines from the hospital storer for use in the wards.

When the hospital management engaged nurses employed by a contractor to take the medicines to the wards, the union issued a new directive for medicines taken to the wards by the contractor's nurses not to be administered, the ministry said.

As a result, patients were not given their medicines on time.

It was only after the hospital management's intervention that the medicines were administered.

The Ministry said it condemned such irresponsible actions and said it would continue to work in the interests of the patients.

The ministry also noted that in the space of three days, the union had also ordered industrial action which affected patients at health centres and those at the renal unit.