Nurses and midwives will be holding a protest rally against their working conditions next Tuesday, possibly paving the way for an escalation of industrial action.

For the past 12 days, nurses and midwives have refused to carry out any non-nursing duties, including clerical work, and neither have they been taking blood samples under the first set of directives ordered by the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses.

These directives are expected to be stepped up next week, although union president Paul Pace would not reveal how. He would only say the new actions were expected to have an effect on services in hospitals and health centres.

Although the MUMN has insisted their directives would not affect patients, hundreds of people have had their appointment for blood tests postponed because of the action.

A Health Ministry spokesman said around 240 patients visit government health centres every day for routine blood tests. But since nurses were not taking blood samples, their appointments had to be postponed.

Nurses are up in arms over staff shortages, failure to provide staff meals and the fact they have not yet been given a professional warrant, which had been promised a year ago.

The ministry spokesman said the legal notice to grant nurses warrants had been approved and would be published in the coming days.

In a letter sent to all its members, calling on them to attend next week's rally, the union said nurses and midwives were making sacrifices because they faced "skeleton staff" all the time.

Moreover, they were so stretched that there was an increase in shortcomings, which they had been disciplined for.

"The authorities are not taking the shortages into consideration," the letter said.

The union is also calling for a long-term manpower plan on how the government aims to cater for new developments in the health sector, including the planned reform in primary healthcare.

The ministry spokesman said the authorities were still doing their utmost to recruit nurses - both Maltese and foreign.

It said other staff members had been employed to relieve nurses from duties not directly related to their job.

Last week Parliamentary Secretary for Health Joe Cassar said he was very worried about the shortage of nursing staff.

Asked whether there had been any recent contact between the authorities and the union, the spokesman said this was not the case: "The government has nothing to add to the lengthy discussions held with the union... "