Updated 5 p.m.
An agreement has been reached between the Health Department and the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses for an increase in the number of nurses in hospital wards where the number of beds has been raised.
The two sides this afternoon held a three-hour meeting which the department described as 'cordial'.
The two sides also agreed that, as a temporary measure, one bed will be added to the medical and surgical wards at Mater Dei Hospital in the most spacious of the two-bedded rooms. The extra beds will be removed later in the year when a new ward is opened at the hospital.
A number of meetings will be held with the hospital administration to find long-term solutions to the hospital's problems.
Earlier today, MUMN president Paul Pace said the union had been asking for talks on this issue for the past four years.
Listing the problems at the hospital, Mr Pace said one did not need to be a rocket scientist to understand that a hospital which had fewer beds than the overcrowded hospital it replaced, would immediately run into problems.
The main problems, therefore, stemmed from overcrowding in the Emergency Department, the Maternity Ward and ITU, as well as some other wards.
The hospital, he said, needed a whole new wing in order to raise the number of beds.
But having more beds was only part of the solution, because the hospital also needed more nurses to cope with the number of patients, and better equipment.
He said that if today's meeting did not start the road to solutions, the union could take industrial action. He said such actions would not include strikes, but rather, actions to reduce load on nurses so that they could prioritise their contact with patients.
"Patients are currently being treated lick sacks of potatoes, squeezed wherever there is space" he said.
Referring to a Health Department statement yesterday that it was only prepared to engage more day nurses to cope with demand, Mr Pace insisted that Mater Dei needed more day and night nurses.
He also called for changes in work practices. For example, he said, since consultants did not work Sundays, there were no discharges on that day and this had a ripple effect on bed availability.