Meeting on nurses 'shortage' claim

The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses (MUMN) is hoping that a meeting with St Luke's Hospital authorities on Friday will settle what it claims is a shortage of nurses at the hospital.

MUMN general secretary Colin Galea told The Times there was an agreement which laid down that there should be five nurses in a ward at any time and the number would increase if more patients were admitted.

"When there are more patients, like on operation day, the nursing officer would make arrangements to have more nurses," he said.

However, he said, the number of patients in each ward had sometimes gone up to 37 from the usual 30 but only three or four nurses were on duty in the ward.

In a letter to the hospital's chief executive officer Kenneth Grech, Mr Galea said the surgical wards were going through a difficult time because of the increasing number of patients.

He said the union could not understand how, confronted with this "alarming situation", the hospital was restricting the number of nurses.

"The union can no longer accept this situation, and while it understands that the number of patients in each ward has to increase, these increases need to be reflected in more nurses so that they can keep up with patients' needs," he said.

Contacted by The Times, hospital human resources and administration director Mark Scicluna confirmed that a meeting will be held on Friday to attempt to resolve the situation.

He said there had been a net increase of 27 nurses, but added that at this time there was an inordinately high number of patients.