Inadequate hospital space for cancer patients

There is a great need for space and more beds at Sir Paul Boffa Hospital to accommodate more cancer patients, Victor Muscat, consultant in radio therapy and oncology at the hospital, said yesterday.

There are two wards at the hospital: one for men which takes 12 patients, and another for women, which takes 13 patients.

Doctors feel helpless and cruel when people cannot be admitted for lack of space, particularly if they are terminal patients. Patients often implore the hospital medical staff to admit them to Sir Paul Boffa - but not to St Luke's Hospital where they feel unwanted, Dr Muscat said.

"We see anguish, pain and tears and we have to offer patients hope and to encourage them to put up a fight and show them that we will be with them," he said.

Dr Muscat was one of the speakers at a one-day conference organised by the Malta Hospice Movement on Caring for Persons with Cancer: The current situation in Malta.

Held at the Radisson Bay Point Resort, in St George's, the conference, which was oversubscribed, was attended by 250 doctors and paramedics.

When asked by one of the delegates when he thought that the hospital would be migrating to the new Mater Dei Hospital at Tal-Qroqq, Dr Muscat replied: "We are not on the map yet so we are stuck at Boffa".

Maria Sciberras, superintendent at Sir Paul Boffa, said the administration at the hospital were aware of the lack of space and planned to increase the number of beds in each ward to 16. It also planned to set up a palliative unit and a day ward for patients to be treated in decent surroundings. The practice now is for two to three patients to be treated at a time.

Dr Sciberras said her impression was that the migration of Sir Paul Boffa to Mater Dei would not take place for another 10 years.

Delivering the opening address, President Guido de Marco noted that there was more information about cancer, remarkable medical progress, and people suffering from cancer were recovering or living longer. However, the stigma and stereotypes of cancer still existed in society.

"We have allowed cancer to overtake the power of humanity. This is precisely the battle that the Malta Hospice Movement is fighting: they keep focused on the person; they seek to improve the patients' quality of life; they support families; they provide the highest possible standards of palliative care," Prof. de Marco said.

Set up in 1989 on the model of St Christopher's Hospice established in London by Dame Cicely Saunders, the Malta Hospice Movement ensures continuity of care for patients and support for their families, during the illness and where appropriate in the time of bereavement.

Opening the conference, Theresa Naudi, Hospice chairman noted that since the days of Saunders' pioneering work, palliative medicine has developed into a specialty. Palliative care is practised by the health care systems of the developed countries.

"This has yet to happen in Malta and we look forward to the day when palliative medicine becomes part of the medical school curriculum and a career structure in this subject is in place," Ms Naudi said.

The Hospice Movement has seven full-time and 12 part-time professionals and 200 volunteers who between them provide patients with 600 hours of their time a week.

Closing the conference, the director general for health, Ray Busuttil, pointed out that through the nurse-led breast care unit at St Luke's out-patient department, the Health Division provides an outstanding example of a focused approach, offering a personalised and holistic service to patients that helps reduce unnecessary delays and inefficiencies.

The setting up of the paediatric oncology unit at Karin Grech Hospital a year ago was a successful first step in providing a favourable environment dedicated to the needs of children with cancer, he said.