The nurses’ union suspended its controversial directives yesterday and a “cordial” two-hour meeting was held with the government to try and iron out differences.
The meeting discussed how to evaluate the role of nurses, the number of nurses in the health sector and how to bring in support staff so that nurses may focus on their main job, a Health Ministry spokesman said.
The outcome of the first meeting was positive, the ministry noted.
Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses president Paul Pace described the meeting as “encouraging” but added that it was still too early to say what the outcome would be.
“The challenge is not agreeing, but implementing. Certain issues have been established and the generator for Mount Carmel Hospital will be bought soon,” he said, adding that the union’s objection to nurses acting as porters will also be tackled. These are two of the main issues in the union’s dispute with the government.
The ministry spokesman said the government aimed to have a proper scientific audit to evaluate current roles and see how extra work, such as administrative jobs, may be done by other staff. She gave as an example a medical secretary course that has just opened at the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology.
Among other directives, nurses had been ordered by their union to walk out of Mt Carmel Hospital wards in case of a blackout, even if a patient needed life-saving CPR treatment, and not to pick up medicines from its pharmacy. The directives were described by the government as “illegal” and “irresponsible”.
Since the directives have been lifted, blood tests will also resume being taken at health clinics and patient information updated in the hospital’s IT system.
Although the union had remained mum on the complete list of reasons behind the dispute, it focused on staff shortage as the main spark for the industrial actions.
The union was particularly irked about the numerus clausus set by the University for the nursing courses and argued that students should not be rejected from the course when the country needed so many nurses.
The meeting – between Health Minister Joe Cassar, Parliamentary Secretary Mario Galea, Health Division officials and MUMN representatives Mr Pace and secretary Colin Galea – also discussed the revision of internal policies, including that of medicine dispensing which uses support staff from the pharmacy.
The ministry said there had to be an agreement from both sides on the methods by which the necessary studies were carried out before they could proceed.