Updated 5.30pm
The government will provide more career progression opportunities for doctors in hospital emergency wards and polyclinics as part of an agreement signed with the doctor's union on Friday afternoon.
On Thursday Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela announced that the Medical Association of Malta (MAM) and the government had come to an agreement, three weeks after doctors registered a dispute over the outsourcing of Mater Dei's emergency services to private hospitals.
MAM members endorsed the agreement at 3.30pm on Friday.
The deal means the doctors' union will no longer be objecting to the government's outsourcing plans.
The union and the government also agreed that more consultant and senior positions will be offered to doctors at the casualty departments of Mater Dei and Gozo General Hospital, sources told Times of Malta.
"The government has been planning to further expand this specialist pool, however, these recent discussions cemented those plans," one government official told Times of Malta.
The agreement also covers general practitioners and trainees at polyclinics who will also be given more opportunities for career advancement, Times of Malta understands.
The agreement meanwhile covers reforms that "streamline emergency department services".
In a statement on Friday afternoon, Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela said the agreement reached with the union reflected the government's vision of ensuring quality careers.
The ministry believed that all of the country's resources, whether state-owned or private, should be used to ensure patients received good and timely care.
MAM's president Martin Balzan meanwhile said the agreement benefitted doctors and patients as it ensured the betterment of services provided at emergency and health centres.
Why did doctors register a dispute?
The health ministry and MAM came to loggerheads earlier this month when the doctors' union said it was opposing a new private hospitals' outsourcing agreement to ease pressure on Mater Dei's emergency services.
MAM subsequently ordered its members not to refer patients to private hospitals.
The union separately said it was unhappy with "mismanagement" of the health sector, particularly health centres.
As the dispute turned personal and MAM faced internal challenges, directives were extended to health centres, with only centres in Paola, Mosta and Floriana operating with doctors around the clock.
Services in health centres in Gżira, Cospicua, Kirkop, Birkirkara and Qormi were impacted as a result.
The nurses’ union, MUMN, stepped in and instructed its members to attend to patients at centres affected by the dispute, with the three private hospitals involved in the outsourcing deal also taking in public patients.
On Monday, the union paused those strikes following a “long and productive” meeting with Health Ministry officials.
That progress eventually led to the agreement that was signed on Friday.