The average patient at Mater Dei Hospital’s accident and emergency department waited around three hours to be seen by a doctor in February, the Health Minister acknowledged on Tuesday. 

Chris Fearne told parliament that there was an average three-hour waiting time between a patient being registered at the hospital’s A&E department and a doctor attending to them. 

The statistic is based on the experience of the 5,432 patients who reported to Mater Dei’s A&E between February 1 and 21. 

Not all patients faced long waits: people who report to the emergency department first undergo triage – a process by which medical staff determine how urgent their medical condition is – with those requiring urgent care seen first. 

It took medical staff an average of 19 minutes to carry out triage on patients after they were registered at the A&E department. 

Fearne divulged the figures in response to a question from Opposition MP Ian Vassallo. 

Complaints about long waiting times at the state hospital’s A&E department are a regular occurrence and date back years.

Back in 2014, the average patient at Mater Dei's emergency department waited seven hours to be seen. 

Britain’s National Health Service sets hospitals a four-hour waiting time target for their A&E departments. In Canada's Ontario, authorities set an eight-hour target. 

Things are significantly better in France: a 2016 study found that 70 per cent of emergency patients in French hospitals were seen by a doctor within one hour.  

Vassallo also asked the Health Minister which areas at Mater Dei had to be temporarily converted into wards during February, and how many beds were placed in each of those areas.

Fearne replied that there were three such instances that month: on February 6, ITU 6 was opened up for nine patients, while on February 20 ITU 3 and an endoscopy day care unit (DCUE) were both opened up for six and 12 patients respectively. 

ITU 3 was closed on February 25 while the DCUE was closed on February 23.