The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses (MUMN) has criticised the lack of accountability shown by the director of the Forensic Unit at Mount Carmel Hospital.

A nurse was fined €5,000 on Monday for failing to prevent the suicide of an inmate she was supposed to be constantly watching over at the forensic unit of Mount Carmel Hospital.

MUMN says that while the nurse has been punished for not properly supervising the suicidal patient, the director had not been held responsible.

The union pointed out that only the nurse was taken to court and fined heavily, the director was not. The small fry was crucified while the top brass was kept out of the matter.

The union said that with this case and in previous ones, the police chose to view nurses as negligent in their supervision when there were bigger problems connected to staffing.

Nurses were being ordered to supervise patients when there was a real need to employ more carers to carry out this role.

“The system or the CEO or top management are never implicated in any court cases even when additional carers were NOT provided,” the MUMN statement read.