No seats, no refund

As a couple living in London, we remain closely involved in local politics.

In order to vote in the local elections in Malta and support democratic values, we booked a full return ticket for €500. Upon repeated calls to the election service, we were offered a refund by creating a new booking and receiving a refund as the prices have been reduced to €90.

Unfortunately, there was a major glitch: they were unable to find two seats for the return flight (LHR-MLT) despite the fact that we already had our full-price two seats, so they could not proceed with the service and our seats were not being shown as available on the system. However, since the terms and conditions require that a return flight be booked, they were unable to give us any compensation for our outgoing flights (MLT-LHR).

I would really like to know why we should bother to cast our votes when the Electoral Commission is unable to give a refund to two Maltese citizens who genuinely intended to vote at the polls.

There are rules for some and rules for others.

Martinique Vella-Baldacchino and Matthew Schembri – London

Hello my name is…

I have just spent a week accompanying my mother who is an inpatient at Mater Dei Hospital. Overall, I have experienced some sterling examples of care from the staff on the orthopaedics ward, as well as the geriatric team.

However, one aspect of care was glaring in its absence. It seemed to be a consistent habit for staff to not introduce themselves to patients and their carers. This omission ranged from junior doctors attending to insert a Venflon, to a consultant who told me several times what his role was (‘not a dentist’) but did not tell me his name despite my introducing myself with my name and role.

I am not sure whether this is lack of courtesy or lack of training, however, it does little to foster compassionate patient-centred care and leads to a paternalistic power imbalance which is far behind modern medical thinking.

I’d like to leave a paragraph from Dr Kate Grainger who set up the ‘Hello my name is’ campaign in the UK:

“I firmly believe it is not just about common courtesy, but it runs much deeper. Introductions are about making a human connection between one human being who is suffering and vulnerable, and another human being who wishes to help. They begin therapeutic relationships and can instantly build trust in difficult circumstances.”

I hope this letter will reach the ears of our medical and nursing educators and that this simple change will become more prevalent in our hospital.

Kathleen Serracino-Inglott, consultant forensic psychiatrist – Manchester