A few days ago I had an appointment at St Luke's Hospital. At 10 a.m. I presented myself at the reception of the outpatients department and was very politely invited to take a seat in one of the waiting rooms. I was there an hour early.
Quite suddenly, another patient accompanied by a relative, who happened to be a nurse working in one of the medical wards, sat beside me. Soon we broke the silence and began a conversation about the working environment and overcrowding at St Luke's Hospital.
As a former nurse at a Welsh hospital, I was really delighted to meet a counterpart with whom I could discuss related issues. Unsurprisingly, the precarious situation and miserable conditions facing the nurses and other paramedical staff, particularly those working in wards, was the key topic.
This nurse complained that although the main union representing the nurses and midwives always grumbles about the shortage of nurses, ironically, many of the fellow nurses don't even agree that there is a shortage of nurses. But mismanagement and bad relocation of nurses are definitely contributing to the chaotic environment at St Luke's Hospital.
One cannot understand that, while nurses in wards try hard to cope with the situation, in certain areas of the hospital there are qualified nurses carrying out purely clerical duties, duties that could be handled by staff at lower grades, such as ward clerks, nursing aides or health assistants.
Nurses who these days are considered professionals are trained to deal directly with patients, not with files. Nurses are trained to administer medication, change dressings on wounds, bathing patients, positioning them to prevent joint contractures, take blood pressure and maintain patients' health. And not simply to call a patient's name on the PA system so he or she could enter the consultation room. After all, while I was in the consultation room, the doctor was never assisted by a nurse.
When the consultation was over, the staff nurse only gave me another appointment, nothing else, and again that's entirely a job that could be easily done by a clerk, health assistant or nursing aide. Incongruously enough, a qualified nurse doing clerical work and another qualified nurse exposed to all the elements in a busy ward are receiving the same pay and the same allowances. This is pure discrimination that the union is indeed ignoring, discriminating ridiculously enough among its own members.
The same union had issued directives to its member nurses posted in wards not to carry out clerical work but at the same time other fellow members working in outpatients and other departments are doing only clerical-related work.
To add insult to injury, most of the nurses doing clerical duties during the morning are working overtime in wards in the afternoon. What about the clerical staff posted at the offices of the Directorate of Nursing? These are not clerks but qualified nurses.
In most UK hospitals the ratio of nurses to clerks/nursing aides/health assistants working in an outpatients department is 20 per cent nurses to 80 per cent clerks/nursing/health assistants. In Malta the ratio is 85 per cent nurses to 15 per cent clerks/ nursing aides/health assistants. This is completely illogical. No wonder nurses working in wards lack motivation.