Doctors complain of hospital bed shortage

Concerned doctors have written to the hospital authorities to complain about a bed shortage which they believe is posing a threat to patient safety.

In a letter addressed to Mater Dei Hospital acting superintendent Lina Janulova, doctors said they would not assume responsibility for system failures that were threatening the safety of patients.

They have called for an immediate solution to the bed shortage and overcrowding in Malta's only acute public hospital.

"Maintaining acute patient care at Mater Dei Hospital must be given absolute priority. Otherwise, our patients' lives are at stake," states the letter sent by consultants at the hospital's Department of Medicine.

Their main concern revolves the placing of beds in the emergency department, including the paediatric area.

"Overcrowding in these areas has become comparable to, and reminiscent of the situation at the former St Luke's Hospital medical wards," they said. The doctors said the crowded conditions could easily lead to cross-infection and errors in the administration of drugs.

Moreover, the doctors have lamented that the current conditions severely compromised the privacy and dignity of patients, who do not have access to bathroom and toilet facilities.

According to Medical Association of Malta president Martin Balzan, doctors have been forced to examine patients in front of other people.

Recently, a woman was reported to have given birth to her second child on a stretcher in an examination room because there were no available beds in the delivery room. Doctors are also concerned about the potential of patients getting lost in the system, with consultants not knowing when a patient has been admitted under their care.

In their letter, the doctors said that although this was being addressed through the introduction of patient registration, a lot depended on how quickly the data was inputted into the system.

The doctors have pointed out that while acute patients were being nursed in makeshift designated areas during the critical first 24 hours of their admission, stable elderly patients undergoing rehabilitation and awaiting long-term care are occupying "expensive beds" which were originally designed for managing acute patients.

Before Mater Dei opened in 2007, then superintendent Frank Bartolo had said no so-called social cases would be allowed in the new hospital. But just months after the first patients were admitted, between 60 and 80 beds were being blocked by people who should not be there.

Just after he was sworn in as Health Minister last Wednesday, Joe Cassar said Mater Dei was currently being used as a primary, secondary and tertiary centre, and emphasised the need to build a new rehabilitation hospital and have a good primary health system. When contacted, Dr Cassar said the director general for healthcare services John Cachia was liaising with the management of different hospitals, including St Vincent de Paul Residence, Zammit Clapp Hospital and Mater Dei's geriatrics department, to try and utilise currently empty beds. However, he said, this required more staff.

"The ultimate issue behind all this is the huge lack of human resources," he said.