Spot checks on staff annoy nurses

Checks by security officers to ensure that members of staff are at their place of work at health centres have raised the ire of the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses, which is against inspections by anybody other than members of the profession.

The union has ordered its members not to cooperate with the security officers.

The Health Division, however, defended its decision and expressed surprise at the union's behaviour. It said that although administrative structures to ensure discipline existed, it had the right to make random inspections to ensure the employees were at work. These inspections took place in various workplaces and were not intended specifically to check on nurses, as the MUMN was saying.

"The Health Division appeals to the MUMN to reconsider its position and accept that nurses, like any category of workers, are subject to verification measures which the division feels should be introduced," it said.

When contacted by The Times, MUMN secretary general Colin Galea said that if such a checking system was in place it should target all the workers at health centres and not just nurses and nursing aides.

Mr Galea said that although the MUMN believed, and insisted, on control of employees, this should conform with the administrative structure and not be done by workers of an inferior grade who are not members of that profession. Mr Galea said the checks should be done by the Department of Nursing.

The MUMN recalled that when a similar situation had arisen under another government, then health shadow minister Louis Deguara, the present Health Minister, had condemned the behaviour and said the government of the day was treating the nursing profession with contempt.

Mr Galea said the union was directing health centre nurses to lock the doors of health centres if no security guard was on duty and this in order to safeguard the security of the people inside.

The Health Division said that while it appreciated the union's drive to improve the primary health services it could not understand how this could be reached through the directives ordered by the MUMN. Service at health centres would surely not be improved by closing the doors, the division said.