Directives issued by the nurses’ union and which came into force on Monday have led to an average of eight operations a day being postponed at Mater Dei Hospital’s main operating theatre, Times of Malta is informed.

Throughout this week, nurses at Mater Dei Hospital’s theatre have not participated in medical interventions when staff shortages were detected.Throughout this week, nurses at Mater Dei Hospital’s theatre have not participated in medical interventions when staff shortages were detected.

Nurses at the hospital theatres did not assist in medical interventions when staff shortages were detected this week.

The directive issued by the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses applies to about 190 scrub and anaesthetic nurses, deputy charge nurses, charge nurses and practice nurses. Ten directives were issued when a meeting on burn-out and safe practices with the director of nursing services and nursing managers yielded no positive outcome.

In a letter to the hospital management, the MUMN said the list of operations should depend on the number of available nurses and not the other way round.

The union added it could no longer accept a situation where, despite the available nurses, the list of operations remained mostly unchanged. This was causing havoc and a crisis situation, it noted.

When contacted, Mater Dei CEO Ivan Falzon confirmed the MUMN directives “are impacting us operationally in main operating theatres. Over the last three days, an average of eight interventions per day were postponed to a later date.”

Between 150 and 160 theatre interventions are held every day from Monday to Saturday, with fewer procedures on Sundays and public holidays.

While human resources pressures were “very real”, including in nursing, the hospital’s priority was to ensure patient and staff safety all the time, Mr Falzon said.

Hospital management met staff members on the issue

“Deployment of nursing resources within the operating theatre happens in line with industry standards. When this is not possible, interventions simply do not happen. Efforts by management and the nursing directorate to match the ever-increasing demand for our services with appropriately-trained resources are ongoing,” he added.

Union president Maria Cutajar told the Times of Malta hospital management met staff members on the issue. There was an exchange of correspondence between the union and the management to seek a compromise, however, the directives were still in place.

“The directives were aimed at increasing patients’ and nurses’ safety,” Ms Cutajar said.

Nurses were ordered not to participate in any operation or similar intervention unless the nurses present at the theatre conformed to officially-stipulated numbers. Unless there were a minimum of six main operating theatre anaesthetic nurses in the main recovery area and, at least, another four in the day care recovery area, anaesthetic nurses were told to keep the patient in the theatre until there was the correct number.

The same is to happen in paediatric operations where the patient to nurse ratio should be 1:1 in recovery areas.

Anaesthetic nurses participating in the operation will keep the patient in the theatre until the correct number of anaesthetic nurses is present in the recovery areas.

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