Corridors around the Emergency Department at Mater Dei Hospital have been turned into quasi-permanent wards and are being given names for ease of reference, nurses’ chief Paul Pace has claimed.
Mr Pace said that instead of addressing the situation, the management last week decided to add 17 more beds and stretchers in corridors in undesignated areas in a bid to address the shortage of beds, a perennial problem at the five-year-old State hospital.
Only last Thursday, the situation there reached “alarming levels”, he said, with all possible spaces taken up, including corridors and side-rooms. The casualty department was jam-packed as was the day-care area, which usually takes up to 15 patients, but which had 44 “packed like sardines”.
He said patients not only had no privacy or dignity but nurses and other healthcare professionals could not perform any proper aseptic technique “so the risk of exposure to infections is much more significant”.
According to a Health Ministry spokesman, claims that such a decision had been taken were “not true”.
But Mr Pace insists that beds in corridors are becoming permanent, with the 17 new beds placed in a corridor named MAU2 – Medical Admissions Unit. The MAU1 already had 25 beds and stretchers. Another corridor became a permanent ward named M7.
He said there were more than 130 beds and stretchers in undesignated areas at Mater Dei Hospital.
“Instead of removing such beds, as was expected, these beds have now become permanent,” he said.
He recalled how the Labour Party in Opposition used to “justifiably” show videos and photographs of overcrowding at hospital with patients suffering in corridors.
He said Mater Dei was short by 300 beds as well as a shortage in homes for the elderly.
According to Mr Pace, early discharge from hospital due to improved primary health care services “will result in patients returning to be re-admitted”.
He said the union was seeking a meeting with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat onthe matter “since it is clear that the current policies will not address the nation’s needs”.
mxuereb@timesofmalta.com