A Maltese nurse is claiming the Council for Nurses and Midwives has granted a licence to a Filipino woman who, though unqualified to work in the Philippines, has been allowed to exercise the profession in Malta.
Denis Tanti - a registered nurse - had flagged the issue with the council but the communication exchange proved futile, with the council allegedly ignoring Tanti’s claims, prompting him to take his grievance before the courts.
Through a judicial protest filed before the First Hall, Civil Court, Tanti is claiming that although the woman said she graduated in nursing in her home country, she was never qualified to practise the profession under Philippine law.
She therefore did not satisfy the requirements laid down by the Health Care Professions Act which specifically states that no one can practise the nursing profession unless they are "a citizen of Malta or of a Member State or is otherwise legally entitled or authorized to work in Malta”.
Since the woman was unqualified to work as a nurse in The Philippines, the council should never have granted her a licence and added her name to the register, alongside other officially qualified nurses like himself, Tanti protested.
Having failed in all previous attempts to get the council to take action, the protesting party was now calling on that same council as well as the Health Minister to strike the woman's name off the nurses’ register.
And should they fail to do so, he would hold them responsible for damages which he would likely suffer as a fully qualified and registered member of the profession.
Lawyer Anne Marie Mangion signed the judicial protest.
In further comments to Times of Malta, Tanti explained like other nurses who attained their registration by satisfying legal requirements, he "will naturally suffer if the good name and respect enjoyed by the nursing profession to which [he belongs to] is harmed by the granting of the same registration to unqualified individuals”.
“The endangering of the lives of patients trusted to the care of unqualified individuals, as a result of their lack of knowledge and ability to deal with medical issues, can easily destroy the trust of the general population that nurses enjoy.”