Drivers reject 42 requests for ambulance

No fewer than 42 requests for ambulance service were refused by the hospital's ambulance section between June 5 and 12 because of the current dispute, the Health Division said yesterday.

It said the patients had to make their own way to St Luke's Hospital.

With no breakthrough in the two-month old dispute, the division has again taken the offensive with regard to public opinion, publishing a list of patients affected.

It said that due to the current industrial action by ambulance drivers, the following services could not be provided to patients:

An elderly patient living at Marina Home needed transportation after hospitalisation on June 5. Due to the ongoing dispute, a private ambulance had to be called up.

An elderly lady residing at Mtarfa Home was seen at A&E department on June 8. On being discharged, she needed an ambulance to transport her back home. The use of a private ambulance had to be resorted to.

As from the beginning of this week, the ambulance drivers were instructed by their union not to check the ambulance equipment.

"Since this is a vital aspect of the emergency service, the checking of equipment is being carried out by the nurses themselves prior to an emergency. This resulted in a loss of three precious minutes of response time at the start of an emergency call.

"To eliminate this unacceptable delay, the hospital administration ordered the ambulance service to have four ambulances on stand-by near the casualty department instead of the usual two.

"These four ambulances could be checked all at one go, by the duty nurse, thus guaranteeing immediate dispatch of ambulances without any delay.

"However, on June 14, the union ordered the ambulance drivers to ignore this arrangement and to revert to the usual two-ambulance stand-by," the division said.

Another union directive issued this week is for ambulance drivers to refuse transport of patients suffering from kidney problems to St Luke's Hospital for their necessary dialysis treatment.

A private ambulance was ordered for two such patients yesterday.

A private ambulance was also ordered yesterday for a foreign patient who needed to be transferred from St Luke's Hospital to the airport, to be flown back home.

Ambulance drivers recently stepped up the industrial action and said they would only be carrying out emergency work and would not be checking the medical apparatus in ambulances.

The Union Haddiema Maqghudin said that since their case could not be taken to the industrial tribunal, according to industrial relations law, the union was left with no other alternative.

The action was called over the health division's refusal to accept to pay ambulance drivers an allowance in recognition of the fact that they had received training.