The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses has condemned the government's decision to cut the health sector budget by €8.5 million, seeing that the sector was already having great difficulty providing the current services to the Maltese nation.

It said it will be requesting an urgent meeting with the minister since he had declared in Parliament that €3.1 million of the cuts will be from salaries.

The union said that a lack of investment in the sector had become the rule of the day.

At Mount Carmel Hospital there was a lack of wards and children were being placed with adults. Moreover, the old wards at this hospital were in a bad state.

At Mater Dei Hospital there was a shortage of stretchers, beds and other basic equipment stressing nurses and the public.

The union said it would not allow any termination of nurses' contracts and would see that all available nurses, including the new graduates, are employed so as to curb the great nursing shortage in the country.

MUMN insisted that such budget cuts did not make sense in the sector and should be revoked, especially when the government found the necessary finances on other projects that were less important.