10 years ago - The Times
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Nurses to step up action
Nurses have resolved to take their fight with the government over understaffing to new heights, threatening to stop treating patients at Boffa Hospital from Monday when they are understaffed.
Nurses will also stop admitting patients to Zammit Clapp Hospital and St Vincent de Paul Residence for the elderly, which are both full to capacity, unless more staff is employed, and extra beds will be removed.
Those working at the hospital’s Renal Unit will no longer be on call. Moreover, nurses are also threatening to walk out of operating theatres if the government goes ahead and employs nursing technicians, whose qualifications are deemed inferior. District health centres will be shut down until the problem is resolved, the president of the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses, Paul Pace told a rally last night.
Nurses have also been ordered not to change dressings of patients who are not in their ward and patients will not be allowed to wait in pantries before undergoing surgery when no beds are available. Theatre nurses will start taking their break on time and a work-to-rule directive has been ordered across the board.
The MUMN called for the resignation of John Cachia, the director general for health care services, who they say is partly to blame for the acute nursing shortage.
25 years ago - The Times
Friday, November 19, 1993
Average income from employment up
The Maltese economy kept its expansionary momentum in the second quarter this year, according to an economic survey published yesterday by the Economic Planning Division of the Finance Ministry.
Employment performance remained buoyant. Between April and June, total net job creation in the private sector stood at 364, raising cumultative private net job creation since the beginning of the year to 1,235.
The internal restructuring process of private sector employment continued.
Drydocks to contest commission’s ruling
Malta Drydocks is planning to contest in court a recent ruling by the Employment Commission that the ’yard council has discriminated against two of its empolyees due to their political opinions.
The commission had ordered that two workers, Mr Leonard Incorvaja and Mr Anthony Meli (who were members of the Nationalist Party’s Worker Secretariat) had to receive Lm7,375 and Lm4,000 respectively for having been refused overtime for a number of years.
Half a century ago - Times of Malta
Tuesday, November 19, 1968
Prime Minister on situation in the Mediterranean
Malta’s Prime Minister, George Borg Olivier, today warned of “imbalances and new situations which could well lead to the hotting up of a cold war in the Mediterranean”.
The Arab-Israeli dispute loomed large “as a danger point in the Mediterranean basin”. He told a luncheon given in his honour by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
He said Malta “cannot, because of our size, fail to take action to secure our integrity or fail to take necessary precautions” through association wth Nato.
Dr Borg Olivier, who began a 12-day State visit to India said: “We are all too conscious in the Mediterranean of a potentially dangerous situation which is developing, a situation which has evolved rapidly since the Arab-Israeli war of June last year.
“That war itself has created dangers and has caused to my country economic disabilities of moment through the closure of the Suez Canal.
“But more unease is felt because of the mounting of tensions as arms build up in the Mediterranean basin.
“Imbalances and new situations are arising which could well lead to the hotting up of a cold war in the Mediterranean.”