Non-urgent surgeries have started being postponed to ease pressure on the Intensive Therapy Unit, the nurses’ union has said. 

Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses head Paul Pace said directives set to start at the unit on Thursday will not come into force after the hospital agreed to postpone non-urgent surgeries so staff from other areas can help out at the ITU. 

As of Wednesday, there were seven COVID-19 patients at the ITU - apart from other patients - something the union chief described as a “crisis”.

The unit has 20 beds, though at the start of the pandemic, the health authorities said the unit could be beefed up to a hundred beds if more people needed to be admitted to hospital. 

According to Pace, the postponement of non-urgent surgeries is “definitely not ideal” but the staff shortages that had persisted for years have forced the hospital to prioritise one area of care over another. 

The union has said that only 52 nurses from the recent recruitment efforts had been deployed to Mater Dei Hospital, while another 46 were transferred to other entities. This, Pace said, was “unacceptable”. 

In all, there are 250 vacancies for nurses at Mater Dei, 30 of which are at Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Centre.  

Questions on the matter sent to the health ministry remained unanswered.

It has also not yet been established how many people will be impacted by the latest decision.

Malta currently has the highest 14-day mortality rate, with a total of 35 deaths related to the virus. 

There are currently 462 patients who are infected with COVID-19, with around 42 of them treated in various hospitals across the island.