Three senior officials of Mount Carmel Hospital are being investigated by the police over their alleged failure to assign a nurse to a patient who attempted suicide when he was supposed to be under constant watch.

The incident took place on November 30, 2017.

The patient had been prescribed ‘level one’ supervision by a psychiatric consultant. Since no personnel were available at the time, the management could not provide such supervision, so the patient was left unattended, Times of Malta understands.

The patient used a blade to cut himself and was found in a pool of blood in his ward. He was rushed to Mater Dei Hospital where he recovered fully from his injuries.

Despite the incident having taken place nearly two years ago, the officials – one of whom no longer works at the hospital – received a call from the police last Saturday and were ordered to present themselves at the Naxxar police station the following morning to be questioned.

The three duly turned up accompanied by the Health Department’s lawyer and were interrogated for two hours.

When contacted, the president of the nurses’ union, the MUMN, Paul Pace, confirmed that two of his members had been called in for questioning over the 2017 incident. The other person is not a nurse.

He said the nursing officers told investigators that, at the time, there were not enough nurses to cover level one supervision at Mount Carmel and repeated calls for more staff had fallen on deaf ears.

Repeated calls for more staff had fallen on deaf ears

He said the policy only changed in February 2018 after a young patient, who was also meant to be on constant watch, managed to escape from the psychiatric hospital and was later found dead in Qawra. Level one patients are now supervised by carers.

Mr Pace said the police on Sunday warned the officials they were facing up to six months in jail and could lose their job and their warrant if convicted of the crime: negligence leading to serious injury.

The nurses refused to sign a statement and were allowed to leave the police station, he said.

Sources said the police inspector in charge of the case is consulting the Attorney General’s office for guidance on how to proceed.

Questions sent to the police and to the Health Ministry yesterday morning remained unanswered by the time of writing.

Mr Pace complained that his members had been “treated like criminals” and warned that the “MUMN would not be sitting pretty” seeing its members sent to prison for something that was not their fault.

He said he had written to the Health Department’s permanent secretary asking him to intervene, especially following the memorandum of understanding the union had signed with the government in February 2018 over the provision of carers for elevated supervision. Only half of the agreement had so far been honoured, he claimed.

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