The health minister believes that the current practice of only allowing one parent to accompany a child in the hospital’s paediatric emergency department should be revised.
“I am aware of the situation and, as a minister, I have absolutely no objection to having more than one parent attending to a child. The [hospital] management knows this. I’m not the expert but have my own opinions and directions and I think this is something that will move on,” Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela said.
The question was put to him after a concerned father, Gordon Scicluna, contacted Times of Malta following a recent experience in the emergency room.
He described how the one-parent policy was “causing both the parents and the children a lot of anxiety, tension and distress, among other problems”.
The father explained how he had to take his one-year-old son to emergency due to gastroenteritis. His son had not been retaining fluids for over 24 hours and he and his wife were advised to take the child to the emergency room.
But, once there, only one parent was allowed in with the child – both in the waiting area and while being seen by the doctors and nurses.
My child did not stop crying while there as he was afraid
“Taking a sick child to emergency means that you need to take a lot of other things with you just in case, such as extra milk, nappies etc. because you never know how much time it will take. Apart from that, a very young child who is sick can become very fussy and might need a lot of attention.
“In my situation, my child did not stop crying while there as he was afraid. Also, the parent who stays outside is normally very, very worried since he or she does not know what is happening with their sick child,” he said.
He recounted how he tried to give his agitated son some rehydration salts but it fell out of his hands. When he asked for his wife to be allowed in to give the salts to the child, they were told they would have to go outside.
“This is really inhumane as I had to stay outside with a sick child at night in the cold. While I was waiting, I also talked to other parents who were very upset with this system,” he said.
Paul Pace, who heads the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses, explained that the paediatric emergency department originally had four rooms and could take four patients at a time: one in each room.
About two years ago, staff took the initiative to double the beds in each room, getting them up to eight. This was done to ensure that more patients could be removed from the waiting area and placed in the rooms under the watch of nursing staff.
When this happened, it became the practice to allow one parent in to avoid overcrowding, for patient safety and to avoid issues caused by parents.
Pace added that, once the child was examined and if decisions had to be taken or news given to parents, then both parents were allowed in. In such cases, the other patient in the room was removed to ensure privacy.