Health Minister Chris Fearne has summoned the Mount Carmel Hospital management and the nurses’ union to a meeting on Wednesday to discuss the situation at the psychiatric hospital.
The meeting was called after the nurses threatened to walk out over what they described as a lack of safety and unbearable temperatures inside several wards, where air conditioners have seized up.
The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses on Monday said it had given the authorities enough time to carry out repairs and instructed members to leave their wards at 9am. The most senior nurse was to remain inside the wards in case of emergencies.
Sources said that in most of the wards, the air-conditioning units have not been operational for several weeks, leaving workers unable to function properly in such conditions.
The heatwaves that recently hit the islands have exacerbated the problem, leading to exhaustion and workers being taken ill at work, the union claimed.
Authorities rush to repair and replace broken ACs in one particular ward
However, the health authorities rushed to repair and replace the broken ACs in one particular ward, the male ward 3B, where all six units were non-functional.
MUMN president Paul Pace told Times of Malta on Tuesday that the problem was not only about air-conditioning units.
“Yes, they came to install new ones and repair others but that’s short-sightedness. At the meeting we’ll discuss other issues such as the fact that the hospital has run out of the basics which included hand wash soap, kitchen rolls, soap to wash patients and even fruit concentrate to add to patients’ water. The situation has persisted for more than three weeks,” Mr Pace said.
He said the hospital had more than 600 air-conditioning units but it did not have a service agreement to cover maintenance.
Former hospital chief operations officer Paul Dalli recently told Parliament that patients had been made to endure cold showers in the height of winter because there was no hot water for months on end.
The hospital, he complained, had been left to rot.